


Old Secrets Die Hard

by 8TimesTheCharm



Series: San Andreas Faults [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, D.Vinity, F/F, Gen, Past Anahardt, Pharmercy, Suicide Attempt, i suppose the tiniest hint of spiderbyte if you squint at the last few chapters, past reaper/76, please give it a chance, this is a GTA AU, tone of writing to match GTA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 72,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7808569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8TimesTheCharm/pseuds/8TimesTheCharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dysfunctional mother-daughter unit in a hyperdysfunctional city riddled with criminal power dynamics, and a trail of significant events buried in the past are lying beneath the present and future like a ticking timebomb. On top of this there are weird secret service agents, pushy surgeons who know everything, smartass students who attract trouble, a punchline hidden in plain sight and a oblivious pilot caught in the middle of this mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to Los Santos

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I wanted to write Pharmercy for a while but I couldn't figure out a good original universe premise, so here's an AU one instead because I'm a pile of flaming trash. All of the characters are tuned as much as possible to be a reasonable halfway between their original appearance and a hypothetical GTA equivalent appearance.
> 
> Just view each chapter as if it were a story mission, and the pace might make more sense that way, er, I think. This AU was developed with a friend who may also be posting stories in relation to it, who knows! For now please enjoy!

Los Santos, the City of Saints, sprawled out below in its vast concrete mass, from the lapping of Pacific waves, to curling its steel and iron roots up into the mountains that peered over the grey sea of buildings.

Right now it was a monolithic symbol to aggressive capitalism, but before Fareeha can cynically observe the state of the world from that particular thought, she has a poetic thought about how dazzling it can look at night from her same perch—well, as long as you keep the distance.

The streets were never a pleasant time even in the richer areas; the gaudy golden veneer could only hide the inherent corruption for only too long, and that wasn’t counting the regular counts of petty crime in the streets. Even the police wouldn’t give a shit, which was a double-edged sword since they may avert their attentions to pursue heavier crimes, but looked the other way when vigilantes took things into their own hands when attacked.  
Heaven knows Fareeha’s had to bloody her knuckles on occasion, with some military-grade training in her upbringing and actual police drills (in that brief time she considered law enforcement as a vocation) to thank for her prowess and form.

The perch from which she took in this urban view in particular was her new home, paid for in part by her varied flying portfolio (mostly relegated to touring Los Santos’ vast skyscrapers for tourists these days, or dangerous mountainside rescues with a chopper, though sometimes chauffeuring the empty headed celebrities from film premiere to plush homes would neatly inflate her Maze bank account up by some extra 0’s), and in part whatever fortune her mother felt worth sharing. While it was fairly humble compared to its few neighbours, and located on the edges of the city before the freeway opened up into San Andreas’ wilderness, it still carried a hefty price tag and boasted similar facilities, on top of that fine view.

… _Mother never told me where that fortune came from_.

A half-truth; Ana had attempted to pass it off as ‘security enforcement’ when she first immigrated to the USA, but any further pressing was met with silence. Fareeha never got further than that, but she surmised that Ana’s preference for the wilds of Blaine County derived from whatever hijinks that ‘security’ gig consisted of.

Speak of the devil and he will come: Fareeha’s iFruit blared with a generic ringtone with a photo of her mother bearing an all-too impish grin over the screen.

“Mother—.”

Before she could get ‘great timing’ out of her vocal chords, Ana had already gone on her tangent “Fareeha Amari, are you ignoring your mother?”

“No, if you’d give me a minute--.”

“Of course this city would distract you with its myriad illusions, and forget about your poor weary mother! Why aren’t you coming to visit?”

“I _am_ coming to visit, mother--.”

“Don’t keep this old woman waiting! I only have so long left,” Ana replied with a hint of glee at her own melodramatics. Unfortunately, having raised a daughter who was entirely too used to it, it rolled off of Fareeha’s shoulders like water off a duck’s back.

“You say this but I’ve seen you break the arm of a mugger. There is plenty of life in you still.” Too much life at that. “Give me a few hours; I’m driving up and it’s been a hell of a day already.”

“Perfect! I’ll have snacks ready for you when you arrive.”

Before Fareeha could retort that she was 20 years past being 12 years old, Ana had already hung up. The younger Amari pinched the bridge of her nose tightly, shutting her eyes as she pocketed her phone, and exhaled slowly; a week was just about enough time to deal with her mother and Satya’s antics, a day was far too much in too little time, she was going to need that week to recover. For now, sadly for her as she dragged herself to her Tailgater waiting in the driveway, she was going to need to make a trip to the boonies on top of it all, more than enough time to sit on a particularly curious conversation she had with Satya earlier.

Well, once they were past the part where Satya badgered her over not being able to give her lifts to and from work due to the mother issue, before deciding she had alternatives anyway after that. For all the castigating and general verbal jabs it’s a wonder they even considered each other friends—they _were_ , just not your conventional, run-of-the-mill kind; theirs was a friendship forged in the fires of Hail Mary saves from one to another, bailing the other out of some genuinely dire situations when they needed it most. Sometimes banter was just banter, even if to others they looked like they barely tolerated each other.

* * *

 

“There you are Fareeha! Are you ready for our lunch?”

“Lunch being just a stiff mug of black coffee?” Fareeha replied, already making contingency plans to go to somewhere afterwards with actual sustenance. “Or two; how bold do you feel?”

“No, we’re not going to Bean Machine this time I promise,” Satya huffed, already caught out “It is remarkably hard for me to get through my schedule without at least one, however. You should understand the kind of hectic situations I go through—you’ve been a pilot after all.”

Fareeha nodded in acknowledgement, recalling some late night/early morning flights that were to her, wholly unnecessary, but unfortunately for her employers were of a grade ‘do this or get fired’ variety “What’s gotten you to change your mind on restaurant?”

With every ounce of regal grace Satya summoned, she stood upright with her head up, hands loosely clasped behind her back and coolly regarding Fareeha as her stomach unbecomingly roared like a tiger. The image of it would’ve been enough to send the Egyptian chuckling, had her own digestive system not responded in kind. Now a healthy shade of red, Fareeha gestured silently for Satya to point out today’s choice. An appetising salad in, and her friend decided to go straight for the jugular: apt, considering her vocation as a highly skilled surgeon.

“So, tell me, meet anyone nice yet?”

“This is all you ask about lately,” the pilot grumbled, darkly twirling her linguini main course around her fork.

* * *

 

Fareeha clutched her steering wheel with a grunt, hating how Satya could astutely observe some things, and then smash through her comfort zone chasing those very observations. Her car crested over the Vinewood Hills, approaching the Great Chaparral as the sun began to move into its eventual descent over the horizon.

* * *

 

“That is a no, then?” Satya grinned, and Fareeha inwardly hated how much it reminded her of Ana’s mischievous look. “Let me change course: we have been friends for nearly a decade and I don’t even know what your particular taste is. A bit of context might help me find results for you—.”

“Satya, don’t match-make me, please, my mother has already been hounding me to find someone nice for the last 3 years to give her grandchildren,” Fareeha whined, trying futilely to enjoy her food, glancing at Satya as she methodically divided up mouthfuls on each fork “Thanks to living in San Andreas I’ve lost all interest in marrying men, let alone carrying their children.”

“Then women it is,” Satya hummed, eyes taking on a strange sparkle that her companion had never seen before “And I’ve got just the ticket in mind: I have a co-worker who is very keen on meeting you some time.”

“Thrilled,” the pilot mumbled with her tone to the contrary.

“Although, she has been somewhat busy; you’ve heard of some violence popping up around the city?”

“When does it not? This is Los Santos for crying out loud.”

“The Shimada seem to be stretching their legs,” Satya continued, ignoring Fareeha’s retort “Yes, I know they own a couple of the high-rise buildings here as well as some businesses, but you would have to be a fool to pretend they are completely legal.”

“As with many others in this city, but go on?”

“You notice how around certain areas, these men who all dress very well and similarly seem to hang around outside some businesses? Looks like more of them are hanging around South LS and East LS—something’s changed and they look to be doubling down on their business. At least they seem to be leaving the Vanilla Unicorn alone, curiously enough.”

“The Vanilla what now?”

“How long have you lived here?” Satya gawped in disbelief, almost to the point of annoyance “The one major ‘gentleman’s club’ within a stone’s throw of Pillbox Hill? How do you even ignore that place existing…?! Ugh, look, just be careful if you need to go further south into the city than the cosiness of Richman, Rockford and Vinewood. Something’s amiss and our ER is enough to discern it.”

* * *

 

A bump in the road caused Fareeha to yelp and brake, looking out over the side of her car. Only a particularly large stone—better than hitting one of the many poor creatures in Blaine County, who already had a tough time sharing the place with the hovels of angry rednecks littered about, none who took kindly to her presence. She reckoned the only reason they abided by her was due to an overwhelming fear of her mother; there were few upsides to her annoyingly mysterious past but inspiring terror into otherwise belligerent assholes was a welcome one.

She drove slowly between the various trailers and small, patchwork houses, towards the tiny dock poking into the Alamo Sea: the most affordable alternative to an apartment facing the Pacific, she supposed. Ana always wanted a home like that, for some reason. It didn’t take long for the owner of that name to hear her car engine’s particular thrum and hurry out, fawning over her yet simultaneously really working on that family guilt thing.

“Fareeha! You’ve made it, such a long drive too! Come in, come in. Rest before you must drive again.”

“Mother, I think I’m fine, maybe an hour and I’ll be fresh enough to—.”

Ana frowned, pursing her lips together into a line-worn scowl “The longer I can delay being among rich yuppies, the happier I’ll be, Fareeha.”

“…Point taken. I’ll have to suffer Blaine County hospitality then for the time being.”

Her mother ushered her in with an airy chuckle, closing the mosquito net and then the door itself “Come now, little bird, if you were suffering authentic Blaine County hospitality, you’d be in the clinic picking buckshot out of your back, and I’d be chasing the hicks who did it with an assault rifle.”

Ana may have thought that reassuring, but all it did was embolden Fareeha’s already low opinion of the place. Only a few hours of sleep, and then she’ll get to drag her mother back to somewhere where they at least feign somewhat civilised conversation before resorting to firearms— _most_ of the time.


	2. Mother Knows Best

The journey back to the city was uneventful bar Ana fondly talking about her memories within what seemed to be every single geographical feature of Los Santos they passed by. Some of them were mutual, Fareeha remembered the odd times she’d visit her ‘uncles’—most notably old Jack Morrison’s farm in the Great Chaparral with a fantastic view of the valley, though she certainly enjoyed whenever Reinhardt took her fishing on the Alamo Sea, not that they caught much. The drive wasn’t totally unpleasant, though before she could grow accustomed to a relaxing drive, the sight of the suburban jungle looming into view immediately soured the tone to Ana’s voice.

“I don’t understand why you like this place so much.”

“Actually it’s just for work. Not a lot going on in the countryside for a pilot—before you even think of mentioning that damned hangar near your house, there are holes in that rusty tin can roof!” Fareeha quickly interjected, watching Ana attempt to pre-empt her. “It’s on a day by day basis at the moment but it pays pretty damn well.”

“You’re going soft, little bird, fat and soft on the profits of this miserable place.”

Incredulous, Fareeha rolled her eyes and her fingers tightened around the wheel “You didn’t even want me to be in the police or the military, so why are you coming down so hard on this?”

Ana grumbled, shaking her head slowly with a disgruntled frown “Thankless jobs! One of them is more poisonous to your moral character than a lick of arsenic, the other a high speed freeway to an early grave! You benefit more from knowing how to defend yourself than being neck deep in either of those vocations.”

She probably felt sour what with her past experiences in that security nonsense, but Fareeha dared not voice that particular opinion. “Aaand yet you don’t want me in the city where I can earn the most money and live in relative comfort?”

Aha, there was her mother’s frustrated scowl! Fareeha inwardly claimed victory, especially when Ana offered no further retort or rebuke on the subject. “I think you just miss having me in the house like the old days.”

“I worry about the kind of company you must keep here; vapid airheads and fame addicts as compelling as dirt, while in Blaine they are so much more lively with varied personalities--!”

“What happened to buckshot in my back?” Fareeha countered, recalling the ‘Blaine County hospitality’ talk from yesterday and wondering if her mother had just gone senile in the last week.

“Well yes, but you certainly couldn’t accuse them of being dull and boring.”

“ ** _Mother_** ,” she sighed in total exasperation, finally finding her driveway and pulling in. Unfortunately for her, Ana was only encouraged by such tone, and she began reminiscing about some recent events.

“I’m serious! Nothing like foiling a robbery as an old woman--!”

Fareeha closed the door once her mother hopped out “You have a high powered **_sniper rifle_** , for heavens’ sake.”

“—While these two youths with explosives mostly just bumble into citizen’s arrest! It was an exhilarating weekend as you can imagine,” Ana beamed as she followed Fareeha in, vividly imagining the radically different duo her and Jack had managed to corner in the abandoned motel’s grounds. They had pursued them from the failed robbery on the Shores’ bar, and besieged them on the upper floor of the dilapidated grounds. All the two scraggly delinquents had were fireworks that were less lethal and more annoying. It didn’t take long for Ana to down them with some tranquiliser darts—though the tubby fellow took more than his scrawny friend.

“I’m glad you’re taking out your frustration at retirement on such promising young locals,” Fareeha retorted, fishing around her kitchen’s presses for tea bags.

“Oh it’s not like that. I told the police who picked them up that the only way they’ll readjust to a lawful life is with a helping of grandmotherly disappointment. These boys could do with some familial authority—afterwards Jack and I met Reinhardt for a lovely late lunch. They send you their best.”

With the topic changed for the better albeit jarringly, Fareeha relaxed in spite of the sudden switch, fondly recalling the two men mentioned as the water boiled idly on the stove. Far more welcome than listening to her mother prattle on about terrorising backwater townspeople. “Ah, good, I hope you haven’t roped Jack into too much of your nonsense. Is Reinhardt still up in Blaine County?”

“No, you see, much like you he prefers the city to make his money. And much like you, he only comes to Sandy Shores to visit poor old me.” Ana smiled, though there was an absence of teasing to her voice. Fareeha glanced over as she set out the cups, catching a curiously serene look on her face. “It’s funny…”

“Yeah, funny coincidence; but I suppose I always saw him most of all growing up,” Fareeha replied, carefully measuring out the boiling water—there was a science to this she learned the hard way—and letting the tea mingle with it. “I’ll visit him if he’s in the city. Docks, right? Is he still giving tours?”

“The man is ever the storyteller, of course.”

“Docks it is,” Fareeha nodded, making a note to visit him. Just as she reached out to clasp her hands around the small handles, her iFruit buzzed angrily in her pocket “Ah, damn it. Sorry, give me a minute.”

Ana shrugged it off, wordlessly conveying there being no problem, and reached for her own mug. Fareeha’s phone displayed Satya’s name as it shook in her hand. Getting out her exasperated sigh ahead of whatever her friend had to say, she answered “What’s up?”

“Fareeha! My car has shit itself; I’m stuck at this damned hospital. Can you give me a ride home? I will pay you back of course--.”

“Oh, sure, that’s fine. I just got in with my mom so I can swing by--.”

“—by getting you that sweet date of course!” Satya suddenly raised her volume, as if trying to deliberately reach out to the elder Amari. Unfortunately for Fareeha, her sore ear was now coupled with the alarming sight of Ana’s single eye shining with malevolent glee and grinning devilishly.

“Okay, shut up, sit tight, I’m on my way,” she hissed to the surgeon, covering the phone and glaring daggers at her mother “Don’t. Move. I’m serious, stay put. This won’t take long.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it! I hope this girl will do something about your chronically single status. Have you forgotten about the birds and the bees, hmm?”

“ _ **Ugh**_ ,” was the last thing Fareeha grumbled before slamming the door.

 

* * *

 

IAA Headquarters, opposite FIB HQ, Downtown Los Santos.

Within the upper echelons of the looming tower, two agents poured over a cabinet dedicated to private military companies and anything pertaining to fallout caused by such entities. The bulkier fellow, despite his colossal build, managed to delicately pluck a somewhat dusty file from the cabinet and carefully blew extra sediment from the label which read “Merryweather”.

“Oh, really? Are they kickin’ up again?”

“No, not quite in the way we know. They’ve been out of commission since 1989 after all.”

“Ah, so some of them agents are still mucking about? Ol’ Jack’s confirmed to be keeping a relatively low profile in the County, Ana Amari is a one-woman peacekeeping mission in Sandy Shores, Reinhardt’s doing sea tours—he didn’t register his blummin’ company did he?”

“We’re letting him away with it,” her gravelly voiced companion answered, looking awkward as he gingerly adjusted his tiny glasses on his massive face “I think we’d invite more trouble otherwise.”

“Ah, so that’s what the great IAA’s been up to. No wonder they sent lil ol’ me from fackin’ MI7 to keep an eye on you all. Overwatch Initiative, more like babysitting you sorry lot.” The British import stood up, hands on her hips and shaking her head.

“Lena.”

“Sorry Winston! So Reyes, still ‘dead’ or are we sure he’s the Talon bloke? Talon’s a PMC too yeah? Or at least, in name only. Seems this chap’s just taking jobs in the meanwhile. He’s keeping it all really local. Is he waiting for something to happen here?”

“The 1989 decommissioning of Merryweather wasn’t, uh, a neat event. My hunch is that he’s trying to hunt the other members down with Talon as the front. It’s a poor one since we can see right through him, but Gabriel was always an easy read.”

“…so what do we do? We need to do something. Talon’s starting to rile up the Shimada there and civvies are going to be affected if we don’t do something.”

“Well I never liked working with gangsters… I suppose we’re not _explicitly_ working with them, but there’s a common goal.” Winston sighed, large thumb flipping between the persons of interest files and opening on Ana Amari’s page “The fragments of Merryweather have a potentially dangerous enemy primed to strike them all dead, and I’d like to keep them alive in retirement.”

“Okay, so what’s that mean? What’s the plan big guy?”

“I suppose… there’s no direct next of kin for anyone but Ana. If we extend an invitation to her daughter Fareeha to work with us, we can offer protection to her. Goodness knows her mother has probably avoided telling her about the full extent of her heyday. I don’t want to call her irresponsible, but I suppose she might need to face up to her past before Fareeha hears anything of it. So, your first mission has been decided.”

“…So I’m to look for this bird yeah?”

“ _Bird_?”

“Sorry, girl—woman, whatever. You can take the Eastender girl outta England butcha can’t take the East End out of the English girl!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter basically adds a bit more context to the setting.  
> Next chapter heralds the arrival of D.Va into this fic!


	3. Big Trouble in Little Seoul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> D.Va makes an appearance. It's not quite how she'd like to make her grand entrance, though.

It wasn’t often Hana Song had to slip out of her second floor apartment (or her fortress as she liked to call it) for anything else bar the university lectures she absolutely _had_ to attend (mercifully few and far between), but when she did she always equipped herself with an extra grouchy exterior hoping to repel any unwanted attention. Even so, despite her baggy hoodie and her sour look, it wasn’t really enough to disguise the unease she felt in this part of Los Santos: the university area was fine but for some reason Little Seoul was far less welcoming than the name might’ve implied originally.

She tightened her grip around her phone in her pockets, jingling the phone charm around her fingers anxiously, and turned inside the Ltd gasoline store adjoining the gas station. The gamer didn’t even have to go too far and still the very idea was just **bad** from the get-go, like she could taste danger in the air in doing so. Hana would’ve moved to somewhere a bit more picturesque and safe if all of the property agents didn’t laugh at her day job combined with her studying in San Andreas University—oh if only they actually _humoured_ her enough to see the income she could pull in on esports, they wouldn’t have laughed long.

Scouring the aisles for her usual fix of chips and energy drinks and ignoring the cashier and the two people also occupying the store, she huffed in annoyance—if her sponsors didn’t fuck up the delivery she wouldn’t have had to crawl out here. She barely had the chance to curse them out in a bilingual flurry when the cashier yelled and an even angrier voice roared over it “Don’t move, this is a fucking robbery! Hands where I can see ‘em!”

_Great_.

Just as Hana thought she’d try making herself scarce or even hiding between some of the stands, hoping she’d be small enough to vanish behind them, she felt an arm slam into her collarbone and hoist her up. What really made her blood run cold was the sensation of a circular piece of metal pressing into her temple. There was a gun on her fucking head. This was it, she was going to die trying to buy some fucking chips and pop at a goddamn gas station. “Gimme all the cash in your register now, or the girl dies!”

“B-But we don’t have that much--!”

“ _ **DO IT!**_ ” he barked, a click on the gun indicating the safety was actually off now, and Hana felt faint as all of the blood drained from her face. If she stood now, her legs would crumple beneath her easily. She looked at the hapless man opening the bag and his machine, scooping the money in as quick as his shaking hands as he muttered in panicked—was that Mandarin?—whispers. They had a brief exchange of eye contact, pretty much level on the terror front, before suddenly the grip on Hana’s neck loosened altogether and there was an awful crack sound and the skidding of metal on the floor.

“Who in the fuck—who called the cops?!” the would-be robber snarled as he tried to pick himself up. Hana bolted for safety behind a stack of snacks, peering around at the game-changer and found herself a combination of shock and awe. She expected something like a tall chiselled blonde white guy built like some kind of Captain America type to have been responsible, but what she got instead was an equally tall, tanned woman with raven black hair and gold ornaments in her hair with a fucking sweet eye tattoo cosplaying John McClane in her tank top and worn jeans.

Every sinew of this woman’s body screamed ‘protagonist’ but as for the particular genre…well, Hana would get back to that thought if she got out of this alive.

The thief snarled as he got to his feet, wheeling around towards the challenger with sloppy hooks of his left, then his right, as she casually ducked and dodged around them. He lunged, she sidestepped casually, and found himself embedded in a stand of instant dinners scrambling to try do harm for real this time “Augh, you goddamn **_bitch!_** C’mere!”

The woman grabbed a broom, and the robber managed to salvage his gun from the floor. Aiming shakily, his opponent slammed the broom into his elbow hard enough to jar the shot that would’ve entered her neck. The bullet found itself embedded in the tobacco stand behind the cashier, who was cowering beneath his register and sobbing to himself. Hana would’ve happily joined him, had fear not already dried up everything else bar the focus on trying to survive. Another gunshot but the sounds of fighting continued, something sounded like it was leaking—she could only assume it was a drinks machine now enjoying the company of spent ammunition. A feminine voice hissed and she suddenly became awash with dread at the mere possibility that this woman would be hurt; a thought that had never actually occurred to her until now, having arbitrarily assumed she had an invincibility cheat code on her already.

Hana peered around from her hiding spot just in time to see the vigilante smack the thief so hard in the head the handle of the broom snapped in her hands, which she then proceeded to wail on his gun arm with until the weapon dropped again. As the robber reeled, crying over his thoroughly bruised arm and cursing up a violent storm, she suddenly shoulder blocked him into the wall, wriggling away quickly as the stand collapsed on him. Silence descended but for the dozen soda cans and the clink and smash of glass bottles from the refrigerated stand now leaning on the unmoving criminal. Even the cashier dared to look, and while he was visibly upset at his ransacked store, he definitely appreciated not dying today.

Hana stared over, and then realised the woman was looking at her intently. Were her eyes gold or was that a trick of the light? She hesitated, slowly matching her look with her own. The victorious fighter had come away from the encounter pretty scuffed up, bruises scattered about her upper body here and there, and her arm was bleeding a little (Hana could only guess what it was from—a stray bullet graze? She was no ballistics expert).

“Are you alright?” she asked, which was rich considering Hana was pretty much A-OK save for the near death experience. Her voice was warm and lightly accented, which combined with that sweet-as-fuck eye tattoo confirmed to the pro-gamer her background.

“Y-yeah, I’m okay. Thank you, thank you! You saved my life, holy shit,” she breathed, feeling reality and energy seep back into her body by means of nervous shaking. Sirens had been in the distance, but now at least two cars were parked outside. Hana leapt to her feet, running towards her saviour to make sure the cops understood that this woman was to thank, rather than to arrest. She propelled herself a little too hard and ended up hugging the hell out of the woman, inhaling half of her perfume with a metallic tinge to it-- crap, must've been the blood “You’re so fucking cool! I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Thank you.” Well, at least she was open to random embraces?

“Dude, don’t worry. You saved me, remember?”

When the police filed in, they looked pretty relaxed for a store that got turned mostly upside down. Hana and the cashier made their various statements when corralled into the nearest station, fiercely vouching for the woman who swooped in to save them from being another statistic, and the thief was thrown into the back of a cruiser, still unconscious, to be lost in the prison system. Gotta love the LSPD, huh?

* * *

 

It was all quite a blur, only now Hana could take stock of where she was exactly, sitting shotgun in the woman’s car; she was adamant about escorting Hana home from the police station, especially once the student told her she was nervous in the area as is without all this shit happening.

“This where you live?” Her voice cut through the tunes Soulwax FM was playing, sharp enough to snap Hana back to attention.

“Yep, second floor apartment,” Hana replied, unbuckling herself once the car came to a stop “Thanks for the ride home.”

“No problem. Oh, hey before you go—.” The woman pulled out a tiny notebook from the glove compartment with a pen tucked behind the ring binder, and scribbled something, tore the sheet out and handed it to Hana “Take this. My number and address, heaven forbid you need to hide away from here.”

She looked at it like she was just given some incredibly rare object “Y-you sure?”

“Of course. You need some friendly faces here if you’re alone in America.”

“Where’re you going?”

“Ah, I was supposed to see my friend. I’m a little late but, it’s worth it. Please take care of yourself.”

“ _So fucking cool_ ,” was all Hana could say with glittering eyes as the blue Tailgater drove off, resolving to make full use of such kindness.

* * *

Fareeha grumbled, at least 3 hours late to meet Satya to drop her home. Well, technically 1 hour as the surgeon texted her saying ER needed help and that’s where those extra two hours absconded to. Either way, she was late; it was an excuse for Satya to hassle her over timekeeping regardless. The sting in her arm bothered her considerably but it thankfully didn’t impact her driving too much—though at this point she was caked in some blood so she could do with a good clean…

The medical centre overlooking Strawberry came into view, and Fareeha pulled in, hopping out of the car with a slight limp to her chagrin, which only multiplied because somehow eagle-fucking-eyed Satya spotted it and went into overdrive, way before Fareeha could hope to annoy her about continuously fucking up her own car to get lifts home out of her.

Driving around Los Santos wasn't fun but this was getting ridicu-- “ **Fareeha Amari!** What time do you call this!? What happened to your watch—what happened to _you_!?”

“There was a robbery--.”

“There are a dozen robberies in the state daily!”

“Some bastard had a girl hostage in the store—.”

“So you got involved?! I hope you didn’t just get hurt for nothing.”

“The girl is safe, the cashier is safe. Everyone is alive and nothing was stolen,” Fareeha scowled with the intensity of a star dying, the knowledge that she sacrificed some time and wellbeing to save some lives galvanised her proud will—enough to get Satya to shut the fuck up a little. As a medical practitioner she’d have to understand.

“Good, good. Well I’m not letting a minor casualty drive me home, I’m getting someone to patch you up first.”

“Do you have to?” the pilot sighed, following her friend in reluctantly, still limping. Sometimes Satya acted more of a fussy mom at her than the one who _actually_ was her flesh and blood mother “It’s my own car I’ll be bleeding all over. Nothing new.”

Satya fixed her a glare as she called out “Angela! Angela I know your shift is finishing, can you just give me a hand with something very quickly?”

A pale woman shuffled down towards the two, dusting herself off and only just looking up before she ended up embedded in the Indian woman’s back “Yes Satya, coming now—Oh! Oh goodness me, is this Fareeha?”

“Yes, Angela.” _What an appropriate name_ , Fareeha thought. Angela smiled dazzlingly at her, the Teutonic flavour to her words unmistakeable, and despite the long hours she must’ve worked, the woman was still very much a sight for sore eyes. The pilot tried to ignore the slight wobble to her knees, hoping it’d be construed as an injury rather than infatuation. Blonde hair with golden roots, a few stray white strands that could only be discerned at close quarters, vivid blue eyes and fair skin free of freckles, Angela indeed probably looked every inch the titular angel for the poor bastards who had to stay in the hospital. Fareeha cleared her throat, averting her stare and felt mixed feelings when Satya covered her “This is indeed, but as you can see she’s had some… altercations. Do you mind just checking her over? If she’s driving me home I’d like there to be only bruises and no breaks.”

Before Fareeha could scoff and shoot her a look, Angela already hauled her into a nearby ward, mercifully empty, and began pouring over the trophies of battle. The worst of it was a sprained ankle, and minor contusions; the cut on her arm negligible and just required cleaning. Even so, she was extremely gentle, and speaking quietly with reassurance; this would’ve probably been more fitting if the injured party was actually on the operating table to pull out bullets rather than getting what was effectively a plaster on her knee and a lollipop. Well, maybe for her she'd prefer something else but that was just being uncouth and rude; this was a friend of a friend for crying out loud.

When Fareeha got back in the car to drive Satya home, the Indian woman wore an infuriatingly smug look on her face. She was in no mind to press her for whatever the hell it was she was grinning about, and so that particular journey was endured in silence, but she was positive the surgeon was planning something ridiculous.

* * *

 

Once Fareeha got back to her own home, Ana stood at the door watching her, before loudly cheering and holding her arms open.

“Look at you! My daughter, the fighter; and here I was so worried this city would make you drop your guard! What happened?”

“I saved a girl from being used as a meatshield for a wannabe store thief, who had a gun.”

“And he didn’t get a chance to use it, did he?” Ana asked, peering over the modest dressings Angela had used on Fareeha, muttering admiringly in Arabic to herself. “Well then, I can retire back to the Alamo Sea with peace of mind. You won’t need a mother hen pecking away at you. I’ll go tomorrow; you have space for an old woman for another night, yes?”

Fareeha rolled her eyes so hard they were at real risk of falling out of her head. Why was her mother like this? “Yes, yes, of course.”

“Well, I’ll go late tomorrow. I still want to see if there’s anything going on Vespucci apartments.”

Oh for heaven’s sake. _Just_ when she thought Ana was past that nonsense; why did she want a house looking over the sea so much?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a little bit just because I needed to check actual locations in GTAV to make sure I was right! Updates will be slower now, since I just had a very clear idea of chapters 1-3 they were the quickest to write.


	4. Reputation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana regales the near-death experience she had with great aplomb, Ana helps out an old friend and gains two more somehow, and Fareeha nearly clotheslines an English tourist.

“All systems go!” Hana shouted as she flicked a host of switches before settling into her massive gaming chair, constructed not unlike an F1 racing car seat. Her desktop hummed into life with half a dozen massive internal fans blasting cold air at computer parts that individually would be worth probably as much as a bag of smack in Los Santos—well, not that she’d know, she’d rather be locked up a tower than prowl the streets guessing prices of drugs.

A couple of clicks on her soda sponsored mouse and her stream on glitch.tv was online; everything was in its rightful place, the pink layout with her camera in the bottom left and the game on the top right, well, when she booted something up that is. Hana changed it about so the camera sat in the larger display, added a note at the top saying ‘big news guys xox’ and the chat revved into life.

**LosSantosKings:** oh shit something must’ve happened huh

**BaeVa** : D.Va? Not streaming? More likely than you think

**vespuccilights** : is this an announcement for some more sponsors or did you get into a tourney yet

“Hey guys! Yeah this is unusual occurrence I know, I know,” she began, sliding into her persona with ease, stretching her arms up and over in an arc, sighing in relief at a couple of stiff pops here and there in her joints “Just some whack shit happened the other day so I figured I’d tell you about it because it was so fucking awesome. Actually it was super fucking scary BUT _THEN_ it turned baller as hell.”

**Bleetersuxx** : wtf happened

**Chiliadcougars** : Did you get robbed?

**Djlucio4soulwaxfm** : Guys shes fine she obviously didn’t get hurt

A flood of more confused messages piled into the chat, and Hana chuckled, shaking her head “Oh guys, chill, it’s story time before I play something okay? So, sometimes I get sent some stuff from Dorados and E-Cola and Sprunk n’ all that good shit, right? But the other day I was kinda stuck for the usual gamer fuel stuff, so I stepped out to the local Ltd gas store to pick up some snacks.”

The MLG darling sat back and started to get incredibly expressive, not just her face but certainly a lot more flourishing began with her hands “And this big fucking prick decides he’s gonna rob the store, right? Like, okay whatever I’d just slip out, but dudebro picks me up by the neck and uses me as a goddamn hostage. There’s legit a gun pressed to my head, like this, that I didn’t know he had.”

She demonstrates the near-stranglehold she was in, pointing the other hand into her temple like a pistol and mimicked the hammer cocking into place. Her chat is predictably horrified for the most part, save the subset of edgy dickheads crowing the opposite (they were banned with haste by moderators, but it’s hard to pretend she never saw them in the first place). “Yeah, like, I really thought I was a fucking goner, and the cashier’s wiggin’ the fuck out like ‘okay okay I’ll give you the money!’ and he’s crying and I wished I could cry at that point too but goddamn—I couldn’t do anything, like I was full of this cold dread and all I could think about was my life flashing before me. Obviously this isn’t the end of D.Va though since I’m right here! Cos y’see, someone, far too cool to exist, busts on in and saves me.”

Hana angled her shoulders and pretended to flex and punch to the beat of her tale, furrowing her brows and pouting as if trying to mimic her heroic saviour “This lady opens the door right, and I was thinking ‘wow did you get a license for those guns??’ cos she’s like, real buff but not like bodybuilder buff? She’s like martial artist buff—I can tell cos she’s dressed like John McClane and she’s gonna wail on this punk fuck like he’s Hans Gruber. And it was so cool. She didn’t have a gun or anything, she just straight up goes for this dude and doesn’t give an iota of a fuck about his pistol or nothing! _Yippee-kay-yay **motherfucker**!_ ”

Her chat is a rousing chorus of ‘holy shit’ and ‘dude’, and she nods furiously as if she were directly lecturing this gaggle of thousands tuning into her glitch stream, continuing to act out the event on camera with gusto.

“And she’s this bronze demigoddess just casually kicking the crap out of this dude who shoots the slushie machine and is like crying because he can’t seem to stop her. What a basic bitch, am I right? She chucks him into stalls, aisles and shit and then spears him into the fridge on the wall like it’s the Grapplemania main event and it like, half comes down with drinks smashing all around him. Dude’s totally KO’d, and she looks at me asking if I’m okay and she’s the one with all the bruises and marks and like a couple of cuts. Such a goddamn _boss_. If you see a tanned woman who could probably crush your head between her bicep and forearm, with black hair and golden ornaments in em, a fucking cool Eye of Horus tattoo thing on her face, and just the coolest expression—that’s the lady who saved me. Give her props because I’m pretty sure she’ll kick your teeth in otherwise.”

Hana stopped to catch her breath, redfaced from the need to get out her story in full, oxygen intake be damned, as the chat gleefully agreed and begins speculating about who exactly in Los Santos could this mysterious Egyptian heroine could be. There was debate on her origins shortly but luckily Lucio, her fellow SAU based admin, and a couple of other moderators start clamping down before language got too incendiary for her liking, but it died down thankfully once Hana started her RTS-themed stream for the day.

* * *

The phone’s ring blared around the humble little house looking out on the Alamo Sea, the only sound save for coyotes wandering around in the day’s heat. Ana sighed, plucking it from the receiver with the enthusiasm of roadkill “Hello?”

“Ana,” the growl from the phone replied, unmistakeably Jack Morrison’s voice. She’d know that throat gargling razor sharp pebbles anywhere “I’m a little bit pinned down.”

Her body coiled instinctively, her accursed muscle memory roaring into life at the sound of a comrade needing help “What’s the matter? Is the boy there? Is he not helping?”

“Jesse’s _trying_. He’s not good with explosives.”

“Explosives?” Ana’s face darkened “Tell me Jack, who’s giving Merryweather’s finest the hard time?”

The voice on the other line snarled, the sound of pops and cracks audible though distant. Ana wasn’t sure if it was the Merryweather mention or the problem cornering him that made him react so, but if it was, it was hard to blame him. “Two scraggly punks with fireworks, the same as before, but they’ve learned some vague tactical approach in the interim. I’m holed up in the shop and their toys are packing more of a punch this time round.”

“I’ll be right over.”

The very nerve of them to continue their nonsense! If the damned law wasn’t enough—Ana grumbled since it _never_ was, recalling her myriad lectures coaxing Fareeha away from it as a career, as she walked over to the store that Jesse McCree ran when he remembered to. Maybe she should probably stop shooting his hat off so insistently; he’d tend to give preference to replacing his gaudy cowboy hats she riddled with holes and keep going in his weird fantasy, rather than properly earn a living despite Jack’s overtures to get him to focus.   
It seemed like any younglings they had were destined to be drawn to the danger and mystique of firearms and picking fights, but before Ana could wax lyrical about Fareeha and Jesse’s similar yet different backgrounds, chaos called. The sounds of gunfire, angry men and the bang of something louder than fireworks gradually got louder, and lo she stood at the edge of the battlefield that raged around the corner from her home.

She nudged some spent casings with her foot. The jingle caught the attention of the two brutes, whose gleeful expressions (well one of them wore a mask so she couldn’t tell face nor age, but she assumed happily enough that he was grinning from ear to ear behind it) dropped instantly.

“Wot’re you doin’ ‘ere?” the bony, shirtless and ash covered youth asked somewhere between annoyance and fear. His buddy, the gas-mask toting wall of fat, stumbled to his side, bearing what looked like a grenade launcher—quite the new set of toys—as if to intimidate. He towered over Ana by a good foot and a half almost, but she was unmoved. In fact, she merely folded her arms and gestured with a nod towards him as if asking wordlessly for an explanation.

There was Antipodean mumbling between them; now Los Santos was a tapestry of pretty much every single nation on the planet asides American, but it always felt a little strange when anyone from countries with the Southern Cross stars on their flags meandered around, even to Ana who came from a country of similar distance. Probably the hangover from the Australian-US war some years back lingering on, but Ana thought little of it like the rest of the States, having moved swiftly on since winning. She continued to glare at the duo. McCree poked his head out from behind the register, revolver in hand, perplexed that Ana’s mere presence had completely undermined the tense standoff only mere seconds before—although he of all people knew well not to mess with her.

“Well?” Ana pressed, causing both men to jump and look at her “Why do you think I’m here? You two idiots think you can carry on as if nothing happened the last time you crossed me?”

“Uh, well, y’can’t tell us whatta do!” the blond man barked, hopping into what looked like an amateur wrestling stance, juggling grenades. With a beleaguered sigh, Ana looked over at the store, spotting McCree still tense as ever, while Jack was merely leaning against the doorframe, already completely at ease with her in charge of the situation. He smirked, his rifle slung over his back and pistol sequestered away into its holster. He didn’t need ammo where those punks were going.

Ana suddenly yanked the grenade launcher from the bigger fellow, kicking him hard in the knee and forcing him to buckle to the ground before he could even think of wresting his weapon back from her. His skinny friend yelped and dropped all of his grenades (thankfully all still with the pin in them), leaping back a good metre or so. She tutted under her breath, shaking her head as she dismantled the shoddily-made launcher and flung the parts behind her “You boys are going to learn a good dose of manners, _so help me_.”

The men actually gulped—even audible through the bigger man’s gas mask as he tried to scuttle to his feet, knee pain be damned. Ana continued, squaring up to both of them “What are your names?”

“J-Jamison Fawkes. Usually Junkrat for short, eheh…”

“And you?”

“Mako Rutledge. Roadhog.” The growl aged him at least 20 years ahead of the Tweedle-dee to his Tweedle-dum, which only gave Ana more questions about how exactly they began this explosive escapade.

“So you’re the hog and rat? Good names,” Ana muttered in a tone that no one present could quite grasp as either dismissive or genuine. “You’re going to do some upkeep for me, for Jack, and maybe for Jesse there too if he smarts up and remembers his duties as a shopkeeper.”

“M-Ma’am!” McCree squeaked, bolting to his feet in a flustered mess.

“Now, this isn’t just punishment. I want to instil respect in you boys, and good work is rewarded. In fact, we could also decide to blow stuff up together, but you can’t do it _all_ the time to _anyone_ you want.”

“There’s acceptable targets?” the youth known as Junkrat perked up with all-too obvious hope.

“There are no acceptable targets until **_I_** say so,” Ana stated firmly, wagging her finger at the cowed duo who only seem to shrink further away. Jack laughed then, hard enough his shoulders shook.

“God, this is just like the good ol’ days and hazing the new recruits,” he reminisced with a smile, one not shared by his old friend, whose own expression turned many shades grimmer than his.

“Let’s not pretend our past was all roses either, Jack; let’s focus on the future for now.”

* * *

Portola Drive unfolded ahead of Fareeha, its gaggle of shoppers mingling and filing in and out of Caca, Perseus and a host of other shops, ignoring the Epsilon lunatic proclaiming the usual nonsense in front of the pedestrian section. Or at least, she hoped so; it was hard to tell given the trend of people believing idiot celebrities over experts. Regardless, she was just heading out from the LA Customs, dropping Satya’s miserable car into Torbjorn who had offered to fix it up for free. This was a perk she wasn’t aware of before in being Ana’s daughter; it turns out that she and Torbjorn were good pals back in the 1980s too, though she had a hunch that Torbjorn really liked the look of Satya’s aesthetically pleasing but mechanically lacking car. At this rate Fareeha was going to discover that everyone over the age of 35 was Ana’s best friend somehow, and the thought was concerning and reassuring simultaneously, until she realised that this meant the likelihood of her stories being dispensed across the state which immediately swung the mood into wholly worrying.

So distracted was she by the very idea that the one awful story about some stripper that Ana adored talking about that Fareeha absolutely despised being spread across the city alone, that she didn’t even realise she kind of walked into someone.

“Oh, uh, sorry.”

“No worries pet! No harm done, I actually was looking for you!” was the aggressively English response, so much so that Fareeha immediately snapped to attention expecting to hear something far dimmer in content and San Andrean in tone instead.

“Looking for me?” That never sounded good, especially out of a complete stranger’s mouth, even if this particular stranger didn’t look terribly threatening. That said, she had just endured a cavalcade of ‘Diva’s Bay’ or something to that tune that she didn’t have a single feathery fuck of a clue about. “Why me?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a long story and not really a big ol’ public one--.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to lure me into an alleyway and steal a kidney.”

“…y’ _wot?_ ”

“It’s been a weird couple of days.”

“…R-- Roight, I guess I can just whisper but it’s blummin’ ‘ard sometimes,” the woman continued, closer to Fareeha and doing her level best to be quieter, albeit with marked difficulty “D’you ever get the want to blow shit up?”

“What the hell question is that?” Fareeha reared back, bewildered and wary all at once. “Look, I don’t have time for this kind of nonsense. There’s idiots in Sandy Shores who can do that.”

“But it’d be really good fun! Bit of bantz? No?” Lena began, getting louder as Fareeha walked faster and faster until she was fleeing towards Rockford Hills “Awright then, no need to be like that.”

She flicked out her phone, and buzzed the first person in her recently called list “Winston, I made a right mess out of it. The eagle has buggered off.”

“You said you practiced your pitch,” he replied, thankfully sounding more amused “No matter, we can just try again later. Keep an eye on her in case she manages to end up in trouble, it might be easier to explain things when we’re all together. If she’s Ana Amari’s daughter it’s inevitable that some ridiculous adventure will seek her out whether she likes it or not.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I might try the mum route next time even if I think that’s an even poorer idea, but, maybe she’ll pay more attention then. Tracer out! Want me to get anything from the nearest Burger Shot, y’big lug?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm admittedly proud of myself for getting the GTA-canon USA v AUS war into this AU, feels more authentic :P


	5. The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fareeha gains an MLG roomie as Satya plots social demises.

When she opened the door to the curiously melodic knock, Fareeha was glad that her home was situated in the quieter part of the Hills. No doubt that the neighbours would be generating the same kind of gossip even if she was that much closer to the Epsilon psychos, however, it’s not every day that a Korean university student arbitrarily decides to appear on your doorstep by herself—with bags. That…wasn’t quite what she had in mind when she handed the girl her number, but hindsight is 20-20, and perhaps adding her address really was overkill.

“…uh.”

“Hiya! Got room for a poor SAU student?” Hana paused, peering closely at Fareeha “Looks like you got patched up well after that fight too, huh.”

Fareeha stared at the girl, before leaning on the doorway, folding her arms. The same girl that she saved from that hit and run punk in the gas station store was beaming up at her from the outside, as if her reward was her ‘unenviable’ companionship; these were terms she doesn’t remember agreeing to when trying to be a good citizen “What are you doing here?”

The girl faltered a little bit, her brash expression caving into uncertainty and concern, enough to wobble her proud stance “…wow I’m going to sound like a huge lamer but—okay, here’s the deal: I’m too scared of where I’m living. That shit happens a lot in Little Seoul cos it’s so close to Strawberry but usually I’m cooped up in my apartment just streaming—but when I gotta leave to, like, stock up, I’m afraid worse shit’s going to happen to me. I’m lucky that the one time it did you helped me out! And, well…”

She squirmed on the spot like having to say this made her concede some continental shelf of pride she had, feeling like that silent treatment was less the encouragement to go on, and more of a wordless no to her crashing there “…I think you’re really cool, that kinda strong tough silent type, and I think it’d be awesome hanging out with you too.”

“What’d you say you do? Streaming?”

The girl’s face flew up and shone brightly at Fareeha with a toothy grin, standing bolt upright flashing two peace signs on her hands “Yep, I’m MLG pro-gaming royalty D.Va! People all over campus know who I am, and I collab with DJ Lucio a bunch too. I mean to everyday old fogies I’m just Hana Song.”

“Guess I’m an old fogey. Nice to meet you properly, Hana. I’m Fareeha Amari.”

Hana fidgeted, her all-out persona crumbling, especially when granted nothing but the typical aloof look the older woman generally wore in the company of acquaintances along with her introduction. It was a little reminder that for all her bluster she was still pretty much a kid, and a scared one at that; really, Fareeha pondered, what were the major cons in having a roommate? If it cut her bills and gave her some semblance of company in an already too-quiet neighbourhood, maybe it’d be okay?

Fareeha rolled her eyes.

With a small smile, she reached for the heavier bags “If this streaming stuff pays your rent then I guess, come on in. House rules are just keep quiet past 11pm, keep your corner tidy, and keep up your rent.”

“Dude,” Hana blinked, hopping about and punching her fists in the air like she just won a last gasp game that was down to the wire “For real?! _Holy shit, you are so cool_!”

As the Egyptian woman hauled in Hana’s heavier bags, she gave a brief tour of the house—tidy, sleek, clean; it was boiled down to functional furniture and not a whole lot of gaudy décor that houses in the area liked opting for, but that could be changed if Hana was moving in! It was cosy though, as the student bounced around the couches and armchairs, testing their comfortable levels and running to the kitchen to see just precisely how food and cooking utensils were arranged. All she noticed that gave away Fareeha’s job were a bunch of pictures of planes and helicopters; that was pretty baller if she really was a pilot.

“Hey take it easy, don’t break anything or you’re getting the replacement,” Fareeha warned, though mostly out of exasperation rather than genuine annoyance. Hana stood ramrod straight and saluted “Aye aye captain! Sorry! Just excited.”

“I…don’t honestly understand _why_ you are but okay,” she grumbled, opening a door and sliding the cases in. “There’s your room. There’s some extension cables and other shit in there too—assuming that you’ve got your unholy computer monster in one of these.”

“How’d you guess?” Hana smiled innocently, fluttering her eyelashes in an exaggerated manner, clasped hands pressed to one side of her face.

“The thing is probably 5 times your weight,” Fareeha glowered, wincing as she felt her knees loudly complaining about not using the case’s wheels earlier. “Anyway, couple more rules. If an old lady with one eye comes knocking, ignore her. Don’t let her actually see you in here or anything. If an Indian woman pops by… eh, I guess Satya’s fine. She might be reasonable guidance to you.”

“Who’s Satya?” Hana chirped, launching herself onto her new bed rear-first “Your girlfriend? How very Los Santos.”

“ _No_ , ugh,” If Satya heard that she’d laugh hard enough to go into orbit, crowing about made up lovey-dovey scenarios so the nearest satellites could pick it up. Sometimes she was just irritating enough that Fareeha _wished_ the surgeon would. “The other person I’m talking about—not Satya—that’s my mother. She’s the last influence you need right now.”

“Ha, bet she’s super awesome.”

“I don’t want her getting ideas.” _How in the name of all things holy would she explain a girl shy of 20 now living with her?_ Fareeha squirmed, barely able to guess what awful insinuations her mother would start delving into, already hearing her make bawdy assumptions mentally—there was a point where Ana wasn’t doing it to narrow it down to the truth, when she could escalate it into absolute fabrication and aggravate Fareeha’s temper for her own sordid amusement. Satya even heard of some awful stories Ana regaled about her own ‘back in my day’ nonsense, that she loved bringing up Ana’s one stripper story that half of the city probably knew if her network was anything to go by. _Ugh_.

“Aw, like what? Why not? You can be my cool mom on stream,” Hana giggled, already hard at work unpacking, sizing up the rather bare desk for her desktop monstrosity and settling herself right in. All Fareeha could do was inwardly pray and offer thanks that Hana didn’t jump mentally into the gutter first thing, later questioning why she didn’t when that was usually the first port of call for Los Santos girls her age, and especially university sorts at that “My subscribers would be mega-hyped to see my mom’s a big buff bronzed goddess.”

Fareeha’s palm met her face, interrupting her pondering with an added sting as a bruise complained of the contact, sliding off slowly “…Don’t you have family? Are you seriously all by yourself here?”

“Yeah _here_ , sure—so you can be like my host mom, but my actual mom and pops are back in Korea. They sent me here for a university degree at prestigious San Andreas University, cos apparently I’m such a brainiac the Korean higher level education centres can’t handle my shit.” So much for a tragic backstory, though Fareeha wasn’t expecting one anyway.

“And San Andreas _can_?”

“Not really, I’m still cruising through. Why else do you think I’ve got time to stream?”

“Fair point.” And so Fareeha turned away and let Hana continue to make the empty room her own, finding more interest in making herself a stiff mug of coffee blacker than her attitude after a red-eye flight. She had barely gotten to the dispensing part when she realised how rude she was, before sheepishly asking “Hana, want coffee?”

“ _Fuck_ no,” There was a tell-tale hiss of a carbonated drink bottle opening “I’ve got sponsors for that.”

Well, maybe time to discard her definition of rudeness; after all, living in Los Santos meant politeness was an attribute afforded only by those paid to be thus. Not a lot of people were just nice to you in this concrete jungle.

“Alright. Let me know what you like to eat that isn’t anything derived from sugar and artificial colours, I can pick up shopping for you too while I’m out.”

“I’ll go with you, we can bond this way better!”

 ** _Fuck_** _no_ , Fareeha inwardly thought, shutting her eyes and leaning against the counter trying desperately not to sigh resignedly. “I get the feeling if we both go; I’m going to get recognised more. That’s your doing, right?” she finally asked, wondering if all those 20-somethings hollering at her with ‘DVA’S BODYGUARD’ might be her doing.

“Oh, ha, my bad. I streamed after you saved my ass and told everyone who tuned in about you. No one’s bothered you, right?”

“Worst that’s happened is a teenager yelling ‘Dva Dyke’ at me but he changed his tune when I crossed the road towards him,” Fareeha shrugged, taking a hearty gulp of black coffee and hissing a little at the bitterness, just how she likes it. She walked towards Hana’s new room, leaning in the doorway to watch the array of wires and technology being built up like a miniature sci-fi city.

“Gross—er, I mean, you’re totes hot but you’re not my jam, I got my eyes on someone at Uni y’see— but that guy? What a lil bitch. Probably freaked out when he realised how stacked you are. Like your arms, I mean. You’re fond of showing off the guns huh?” Hana quipped, half under a desk like she was changing the oil in a car rather than matching cables to ports.

“Guns?” her new roommate chuckled; that’s a first, no one’s ever put it in that manner before, but before she could joke about, her phone rang in her pocket “Oh, for fuck sake. Sorry, yes?”

“ _Fareeha_ ~!” **_Oh no_.** That was Satya’s voice, laced with a barely veiled glee. The combination of the two is a rare occasion but when it happened, oh boy, was the Egyptian in for a bad, _bad_ time. “ _Are you busy tomorrow?_ ”

There was the faint sound of girlish chuckling, whispers and the sound of someone trying to shush Satya before she could follow through on whatever it was. The pilot held the phone away, frowning at it like it spontaneously turned into radio static, before cautiously returning it to her ear, bracing herself for whatever her friend had in mind and praying she wasn’t about to make a terrible mistake “No, I guess not, why?”

“ _Then you can meet Angela for dinner maybe? Or a movie-- or a little walk along Del Perro pier hmm?_ ”

“Satya Vaswani, I **_told_** you not to match-make me!” Fareeha barked, enough to startle Hana into slamming her head into the desk with a roar of Korean swearing “Oh shit, are you okay?”

“ _Who are you talking to?_ ”

 **Oh fuck**. If Satya realised there was a girl here already this conversation could turn south very quickly. Fareeha hastily improvised “There’s an electrician fixing some fuzzed wires, it’s nothing. More importantly, what the hell are **_you_** doing?”

“ _Do you not want to meet her? Is she not good enough, Amari?_ ”

“Don’t pull that shit,” Fareeha growled, hating when Satya decided to go for that particular approach to things, and not at all helped by the sudden background silence on the other end of the line nearly levelling her with immediate guilt “If anything, she’s _too_ good for me. If she wants to meet me, whatever, cool. I’ll meet her at like, noon or something by the pier, tomorrow alright? I hate when you do that crap; that _really_ gets under my skin.”

She hung up before the surgeon could add a little jib at her expense, angling her arm back as if to throw her phone but reconsidering at the last second when Hana sat up, rubbing her reddened forehead but grinning from ear to ear at what she overheard “So, y’going on a date? With a lady? How verrrrrry Los Santos.”

“Not a damn word or you’re going to be surviving on lettuce and kale smoothies,” the older woman grumbled, just short of stomping back into her own bedroom to think about _what on earth_ she was supposed to do to meet the standards of this pretty blonde doctor that Satya decided to throw at her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will actually have a glimpse of some Pharmercy goodness, I swear!


	6. Have Mercy On Me (please)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The duality of everyone's favourite Swiss doctor in Los Santos.

Del Perro Pier was relatively busy on this sunny afternoon, mostly with families rather than gangs of youths who thought they were all that with their brass knuckles and knives. Those in particular had been chased off, presumably by the Shimada suits that Satya had mentioned, unless the old Vagos guard got to them first. Fareeha looked around; taking in the surprisingly fresh salty sea air (probably polluted but living in this state made it hard to tell the difference), noting this is the first time in about 20 odd years that she felt pretty safe on the pier to go for an unarmed stroll. The only thing that was dangerous right now (asides from some of the older, creakier rides on the pier that somehow got a pass from the health and safety authorities) was the swell of butterflies circling in her gut, each one a curse on Satya Vaswani’s name for twisting her arm but probably more so that poor Dr Ziegler woman. Honestly, what would the good doctor have to gain by being with her? Fareeha couldn’t figure out what Satya’s thought process was; maybe it was benevolent, but it might more likely be a complete waste of time for everyone involved.

Her thumb anxiously poked her phone screen, flipping between apps just for something to do to disguise the quiver of nerves in her hands, until that lovely voice snapped her to attention, slicing through her focus like a warm knife through butter.

“Hello, Fareeha,” Angela greeted, her voice the aural equivalent of a sunbeam through grey clouds. She wore a black turtleneck and a beige skirt matched with black heels, nothing too overtly dressy but she may as well have worn a little black dress ensemble standing beside ever-grungy looking Fareeha in her jeans and tank top array. The pilot recalled Hana chiding her for having a ‘copypasta wardrobe’ whatever the fresh hell _that_ meant.

“You’re looking well today.” _Oh please, **how**?_ “Shall we?”

“I don’t have anything in particular in mind other than a little stroll, if that’s alright,” Fareeha began, hands balled up in her pockets as she feigned casual coolness despite sounding almost guilty at her lack of preparation. The doctor’s smile was small and gentle but it reached her eyes in a way that filled Fareeha with a cosy kind of warmth, her hands loosely clasped behind her.

“That’s fine, we can play 20 questions to get to know each other,” she chimed with a laugh, starting forward below the Del Perro pier sign. The two ignored the wobbly young man to the left dubbed the Christ impersonator, a little landmark dispensing wisdom all too easily lost in this hectic city.

“Y-Yeah that’d probably be a good start, huh?”

“You’re a Los Santos native, yes?” Angela asked, straight out of the gate with the opposite question to what Fareeha usually had to put up with. It was enough to stagger her for a couple of seconds before she could muster a reply.

“Uh, yeah actually, everyone else thinks I’m fresh off the plane, but I was born here. My mother emigrated from Egypt,” Fareeha clarified, wondering how Angela guessed from her affected accent that she was born under the Stars and Stripes rather than the red, white and black. Although, that said, Ana had ensured she’d never sound entirely local either. “It’s been pretty difficult to get out of this state since. What about you?”

“Zurich,” Angela answered, casting her eyes over at her, a carefree spring in her step “Switzerland. People think I’m German or, heaven forbid, _Austrian_.”

Fareeha chuckled along with her, though she knew little of the delicate relations between Central European countries, the knot of tension in her shoulders easing as she settled in “How cultured, a Swiss doc in this city of showbiz and tabloid crap. I think you’ve classed the place up.”

“Oh, I don’t know about _that_!” Angela replied, a little suddenly but the urgency went over Fareeha’s head, as did the doctor’s subsequent attempt to cover the social faux-pas “I’ve been in the USA since I was 18, I don’t think it’s changed much for my mere presence. This is where I got my degrees for medicine.”

“…huh, really? Isn’t university education more expensive to get here than Europe?” the pilot paused, frowning slightly at the somewhat illogical circumstances. Her companion made a noise and cleared her throat as if to tell a tale as they passed the pier’s Bean Machine chain, the smell of ‘fresh’ reheated churros wafting into the air.

“The idea behind the move was the usual, you know, land of opportunity and all that,” Angela began, her pace slow and ponderous as her tone as she steered the conversation “Which it was initially, my parents found good jobs very quickly being multilingual and of good education from back home, I studied hard to get into the university of my choice, and the first two years were good.”

“What happened?”

“My parents died in a car accident,” Angela continued with a half shrug, shushing Fareeha before she could offer condolences or the like “Oh, it’s been almost 20 years, I’m quite alright. I found a way to make money so I wasn’t in debt forever. Though, it was quite lonely for a time.”

“And then you met Satya,” Fareeha added, rolling her eyes “Unfortunately.”

“There’s been much _worse_ things than Satya and that little smirk she gets before announcing a bold new idea, believe it or not.” The good doctor tried to pass this off as a joke, but something in her eyes made that smile far more forlorn than it had any right to be. “Co-workers aside, sometimes the memories of surgeries or treatments going wrong stick with you longer than your successes. Even taking less hours than what I usually have won’t diminish those ‘should have’s, ‘would have’s, ‘could have’s.”

“I’m sorry,” the Egyptian stoically replied, hoping to emphasise how much she meant it through looks alone, because heaven knows she wasn’t going to attempt any physical contact on the first date. Upon Angela’s prolonged silence, she attempted to add onto her meagre apology “I can somewhat understand—not that I’m anywhere near the field of medicine myself, but the odd occasion that I fly helicopters for risky rescues up the mountains here. Sometimes people don’t make it, and all I end up thinking about is those little what-ifs: if I just got there faster, if I just cut those corners, if I risked detouring through that no-fly zone over Fort Zancudo—well maybe not _that_ , but you get what I mean.”

She didn’t notice that Angela had stopped until her feet brought her at least 4 steps away. When Fareeha turned to see what the matter was, she was ensnared by sky blues framed by gold swirling up a storm, tinted a little by the bright lights of the rollercoaster ride nearby—as if she could watch Angela process in real-time that _oh shit_ they had a strong thing in common, more so than either of them thought. It looked like the doctor simply took it as a cue to catch up, rather than ask why the pilot seemed to choke on her next words, or indeed why her face was a good couple of shades darker than before.

“Are you a paramedic then, Fareeha?”

“No, just a pilot who sometimes volunteers to rescue stranded hikers and mountaineers. What I usually do is just ferry A to Z-list celebrities around either as a pricey limo to the next interview or back to their absurdly large homes, or give aerial tours of Los Santos. Nothing impressive like saving lives,” she said, wondering if medicine was just as dangerous as law and the army were in her mother’s eyes, glancing over at her date.

“You have the aura of a protector around you,” was the weighty response, wistfully delivered as Angela’s returning glance seemed to delve past Fareeha’s meagre attempt to play her own achievements down. “I’d be stupid to ignore it, especially considering our first meeting was my patching you up after—what was it?—you defended a young woman’s honour, as Satya put it.”

“More tall tales?” she huffed, shaking her head albeit good-naturedly for a marked change “I just stopped a gunman trying to rob a crappy gas station. He was going to blow this girl’s brains out. Didn’t want that on my conscience, not when I could make a difference.”

Fareeha internally grumbled about Hana taking this as an excuse to move in, and would’ve complained had the next reply not bowled her over, almost knocking a stand to the floor.

“Never mind an aura, you _are_ a protector! No wonder I feel so safe in your company right now.” And then Angela beamed in a most divine manner, just short of cherubs surrounding her like a renaissance painting. Fareeha wondered if she was ever offered modelling jobs before, but knowing the kind of shitty atmosphere in this city, they’d look at the slight lines around her eyes like they were glaring faults rather than enhancing features. Of course, with her tastes running contrary to the draconian standards of beauty in Los Santos, all she felt when looking at Angela was both pure attraction and the distinctly uncomfortable sensation that she was perilously close to living out a wish fulfilment fantasy—pretty much the most perfect woman in the state somehow delivered unto her—if this actually was going anywhere. _Was_ it going anywhere? The second guessing was really gutting any meaningful attempt to focus on the Swiss woman’s words, shadowed by this palpable sense that she’d just somehow find a way to fuck this all up. Angela continued unfazed “I think if anyone dared to mug me you would soar through the sky and embed your fist in their face. Justice raining from above!”

Something lurid in tone floated around the back of Fareeha’s mind when it came to fists and the poor doctor, mustering superhuman effort none of the words came to her mouth, though all of the embarrassment filled her cheeks with red instead. Through nothing short of a miracle, she managed to mask it well “Maybe I should reconsider my calling in life and look at security firms—I suppose I could call an old buddy of mine and see if there’s anything going.”

 “If so, I’ll be sure to call on your services,” Angela quipped with a wink lethal enough to stop Fareeha’s breathing. A frantic noise sounded from her pocket, and the doctor plucked the offending phone from her coat with a frown “Ugh, what timing.”

“Wh-what’s the matter?”

“I’m needed back in the hospital. I’m sorry Fareeha, I need to cut this short—but we can… we can meet up again if you’d like?” Angela looked at her hopefully, clasping her hands loosely in front of her face with such pure hope, sidling up beside the pilot, who genuinely forgot how to speak the English language in that instant in the moment.

“In fact—take this, this is my phone number. I hope that’s not too forward, is it? It would cut out the ‘middle man’ so to speak,” she giggled, gently placing what looked to be a business card with a number scribbled on the back in Fareeha’s hand. Indeed the sequence of events was so overpowering on the poor woman that Arabic spilled out of her without warning, the content almost embarrassingly longing already and Angela hadn’t even left her side yet. Instead of being confused, the Swiss doctor simply blinked, taking the unknown words in before smiling gently as she began walking to the pier’s gate “How about next time you teach me that?”

It was an embarrassingly long time before Fareeha gathered the wherewithal to move from where the Alpine charm had frozen her to the spot. It was another excruciating turn of events that her first move in the wake of such awe, was to call Satya _of all fucking people_ after this impromptu date she set up in the first place; knowing her old pal, she’d never live it down.

“Vaswani.”

“How formal of you! You’d swear I didn’t just organise you to meet someone who would change your life.”

After that level of sass, Fareeha found it within herself to flip on the video setting purely to slowly orbit a middle finger-bearing hand around the screen in Satya’s direction in absolute silence. All the surgeon did was howl with laughter in response “Well this must have done some good if your dry humour is untouched!”

“Okay Satya, really though, I have to ask you why you decided to do this. Don’t you think…” She hesitated, until the Indian hummed to encourage her on “Don’t you think Angela’s a little out of my league? Or rather, I’m way below her par. She’s kinda got it all.”

“Yes, everything except someone who will treat her as well as she deserves it seems. Angela has had a rather poor track record with partners over the years. I’ve borne witness to a few; it seems she shares the same issues as you do with the men of this state.”

“Well to that end I’m not that surprised,” Fareeha deadpanned, rolling her eyes and dangling her hand from her jean pocket by a thumb “They’re idiots, assholes, or idiotic assholes.”

“Mmm, it seems women are generally better albeit still not on the same page as her. To what exact details I’m not sure of, Angela’s very guarded about that part for whatever reason. So, more’s the better that you should be finding that out for yourself!”

“Eh, I don’t know. I feel like she’s just humouring me, or you, with this.”

“You’re being so _uptight_ , Fareeha--.” Satya briefly covered the receiver, however poorly, as she barked orders at some poor intern.

“You yelling at that Brazilian kid again? Wait—Hold the fuck up, _you’re_ calling **_me_** uptight? What planet are we on? What year is it?!”

“Fareeha,” Satya snipped as the pilot began chuckling with the brief turn of the tables “Seriously, relax. You are so wound up! Why don’t you check out the Vanilla Unicorn?”

“ _Are you **kidding** me?_ Why’d I go there?”

“To loosen up! They have a special cocktail on tonight, and I think it would be just the ticket for you.”

“I’m going but only because I get to say you literally drove me to drink.”

* * *

Several hours later, as the sun turned vermillion behind lavender clouds, lining the horizon with a haze of golds, reds and purples alike beneath a heavy dark blue sky, Fareeha stepped out of the Downtown taxi as it stopped in the humble parking lot, adjacent to the ‘gentleman’s club’ and the freeway looming nearby. She paid the disgruntled man a tip for switching his radio station for her trip, although she wasn’t too impressed as he drove off blaring Channel X louder as if to deliberately spite her. Whatever, it was time to unwind; although she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to unwind in this grimy locale.

Walking up to the door, there was a surprising queue, but the bigger surprise was the unexpected appearance of an old gym buddy glowering over the punters lining up with her crest of fluorescent pink hair, the very same she idly mentioned to Angela.

“Shit… Zaryanova? Is that you?”

“Hmm? Ah, aha! What a curious sight you are here,” the Russian chuckled, holding out a beefy arm in front of the door as she took a moment to acknowledge Fareeha with a high five greeting of her free hand “I am used to seeing you with weights rather than at clubs. Is it a time to let loose?”

“Eh, in a manner of speaking. Friend of mine put me up to it.” She huffed, stuffing her hands into her pockets and watching as Zarya let in a handful of eager men after they passed her inspection.

Without missing a beat, the bouncer asked “Vaswani?”

“How in the name of fuck.”

“She is… a friend of a friend,” Zarya answered elusively, as if sidestepping the matter entirely “This mutual is currently inside, actually. I would like you to greet her if you have a moment.”

“Of course, yeah.” Fareeha nodded, amazed that Satya’s network was more interconnected with her own than she realised. She wondered if the surgeon was just as insufferable to them as she was to Fareeha, but that was a thought for another time as she watched the queue grow rather than lessen. “Wow, tonight looks crazy busy. Is it always like this?”

“No. It is only on nights when she performs.”

“She? Who’s she?” Fareeha pressed, curious.

Zarya said nothing to her immediately, turning her attention to the group congregating outside the gates and shooing them away “Please leave. We’re at maximum capacity, so perhaps try again another day boys.”

“Yeah? Fuck you, customs should’ve told you that in the first place!” was one particularly grim response, accompanied by a few ‘go home’s, enough to elicit within Fareeha the need to cave in some skulls with her fists. Zarya simply held onto her shoulder as if sensing the urge, shaking her head with a dismissive smile.

“Do not bother. They’re not worth it. Now go in, quick, before those troublemakers notice.”

Before Fareeha could even reply wondering when she earned that freebie, the Russian had already shoved her in and closed the door behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, the admissions desk attendant beckoned her over only to wordlessly stamp the back of her hand, shooing her away as quickly as the ink dried, somehow perceiving her being a guest of the security on duty. Speaking was pointless as the DJ nearby blared a host of pulsating dance and pop alike, which curiously eased off the further Fareeha dared to venture in this darkened space lit with neon bulbs. The bar beckoned, but only just about visible through a veritable crowd of people clustered around the stage, with dancers slipping between the cracks chatting to the occasional customer about something she couldn’t quite discern.

Fareeha peered harder at the clientele, spotting an anomaly between the men crowding around and the women working the floor, a woman who was entirely too dressed to be a dancer was huddled at a table hugging a cocktail like her life depended on it. Assuming this was the mutual Zarya spoke of, she approached, and the mousy looking woman perked up and waved rapidly with a dimpled smile.

“Hello! You must be Fareeha, right?”

“Satya tell you I was coming?” she asked in response, speaking up so she could be heard over the music “You know _Zarya_ too? What a tiny city we live in.”

“Yeah, y’could say I know her,” the woman giggled behind her hand ambiguously, offering it to shake “I’m Mei. My full name is Zhou Mei-Ling, but you can just call me Mei for short!”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Fareeha replied, shaking her hand with a smile—it was actually a supremely pleasant change of pace to be talking to people who were just normal, or at least as normal as could be in Los Santos. “I take it you’re another PhD person?”

“Oh, I’m not in medicine though, I’m a climatologist.” Mei paused, chuckling away as Fareeha’s eyes seemed to pre-emptively glaze over at the mention of weather “I won’t bore you with the details; I know it’s not the most riveting for many people! We do have some serious degrees in common—I and Satya do, though vocations might differ a little.”

Before the pilot could press the topic (more so out of politeness rather than interest), or even ask what the fresh hell an unassuming climatologist like her was in a strip club, the crowd suddenly began to get very restless as the DJ began talking the next act up, which also utterly threw off Mei’s career tangent. She pushed her glasses further up her nose with a sly laugh and nudged Fareeha with her fist gently while gesturing to the stage “You’re going to get a real kick out of this. All the bar deals get crazy cheap when she performs, and Zarya tells me they still make more money just from people coming in to watch and shower her in money, rather than directly selling cocktails!”

Fareeha grumbled, wondering why no one was explaining anything to her and just assuming she knew how things worked in this dump, as the DJ turned the music down and declared “She’s plagued the dreams and fantasies of all you regulars, and she’s going to drive the new blood here crazy! No matter who you are, no matter where you come from or who you want to bang, you’re going to be calling her name for the rest of your lives! Give it up for **_MERCYYYYY_**!”

The men bunched in around the stage cheered wildly, and the music rose above their decibel level as out strode a woman who immediately seized Fareeha’s attention as someone who was probably at the top of the pecking order of this little establishment. She wore only meagre black lingerie (to match her jet black hair tied back to reveal a strikingly beautiful face, currently illuminated by neon lights) trimmed red accentuating her slight frame but generous hips, fishnet stockings leading tantalisingly up her thighs, but most arresting of all was her gaze exuding the kind of confidence you could bottle and sell to the idiots trying out for Fame or Shame.

Her hand casually reached out for the stainless steel pole as the lyrics stirred her routine into life. Fareeha watched, accidentally but utterly tuning out Mei beside her, as the dancer known only as Mercy prowled closer mouthing along to the vocals. (‘ _Sometimes I wonder what made me leave it. The water in the deep sea. The crystal chain.’)_

She stood ahead of it, hands sliding upwards and arched her head back, allowing the baying customers to take in the delightful slight curves and letting their imaginations roar into life about how she might just look without the scraps of fabric on. (‘ _Sometimes I look to the West.’)_ Along with the next part of the stanza, she moved behind the pole, angling her legs around it and steadily climbing upwards with her torso undulating most heavenly it made Fareeha dizzy. (‘ _And I wonder what made me leave it. And the dream I had of something to grow old to. Now I lost it’)._

And as the chorus kicked in, Mercy stretched out a hand, and spun steadily as the chorus kicked in, angling her head back and running that same hand down her neck, her chest and towards the crux of her legs as she descended down with the pole as her guide, finding the stage with her heels. Fareeha was vaguely aware of Mei playfully punching her in the shoulder and cheering as dollars began cascading around the dancer, but she had long been hypnotised.

It was only with the start of stanza number two beginning that the pilot could earnestly say she had been so thoroughly spellbound, as somehow Mercy picked her out from the crowd, her pale eyes in danger of lighting the poor woman on fire, and slowly swivelled her hips around the pole (‘ _Sometimes I look to the East.’_ ). Maintaining absolute eye contact, with Fareeha of all people it seemed, she sunk downwards gradually and rose again, all the while grinding around it most lasciviously (‘ _And I wonder when will she reach me. The very core of me, I will have to cross that river._ ’) as if beckoning the pilot onstage to satiate that need there and then.

The Egyptian whimpered, her throat suddenly parched but her eyes firmly fixed onto the dancer’s, the little noise at least was thankfully drowned out by the music and the roaring men who were shedding their wallets’ contents all over the stage, though with the way Mercy continued to gaze at her made her absolutely convinced the performer heard it anyway. The mere thought of it terrified her but filled her nerves with an undercurrent of raw excitement, though given the mesmerising undulation of Mercy’s body Fareeha was finding it awfully difficult to be anything but utterly transfixed.

As she made peace with the fact she wasn’t going to be going anywhere until the dance ended, the key change came with the most daring move in the routine that she had seen; Mercy was holding herself parallel to the floor, but steadily moved her legs as if walking in mid-air. As the music began to pick up, so she rose towards the ceiling, and when it kicked in anew Mercy was anchored to the top, letting her upper body hang downwards and dragging her fingers upwards from her thighs, along her flank, along her breasts, her neck and into her crown of black.

With light momentum she swung around, unfurling into a standing position, until a heel hit the floor while its opposite number still coiled around the pole as the torrential monetary downpour intensified, fanning her arms outward as the song ended, bowing her head and blowing a kiss to all of the men immediately surrounding the stage. But her wink at the end, that was saved for when she caught Fareeha’s eye once more, before exiting stage right with the most deliberate, languorous sashay of her hips.

It took a good few minutes until Mei got Fareeha to talk again.

“Hey. Hey! Are you alright? I know she’s impressive but you completely forgot the rest of the world existed there.”

“Uh.”

“You’re in the Vanilla Unicorn, Los Santos, the year is 2016,” Mei quipped, rolling her eyes with a grin.

“Get lost; I’m not _that_ out of it.”

“Looked like it to me!” Mei laughed, sipping her mostly empty glass “Are you going to stick around? Usually people are pretty burnt out after witnessing Mercy do her thing, so I don’t blame a first-timer like you bowing out now.”

“Eh, won’t you be on your own?” Fareeha muttered, rubbing the back of her neck as if the climatologist had caught her red-handed before she could abscond.

“Nah, I’m sticking around until Zarya finishes her shift; I’ll be leaving with her.”

“That’s kind of her.”

Mei stared at the pilot like she was missing some crucial implication, mumbling to herself in a language Fareeha couldn’t understand but she heard Satya’s name mentioned. It was probably better not to press, whatever that was about. (Mei would later call Satya and tell her she really wasn’t kidding when she told her friend just how obnoxiously oblivious Fareeha Amari could be to the most obvious of hints.) For Fareeha’s part, she stood up and nodded towards the door “I’ll be heading back home, but it was nice to meet you. We could probably do this again and I might be more talkative.”

“Hah, something tells me you won’t ever get used to ‘witnessing Mercy’, but okay! See you around Fareeha!”

* * *

The cold air hit her like a splash of water, and suddenly the pilot found her lusty stupor vanishing into the night sky. Probably all the better, otherwise she might’ve ended up in Davis rather than her corner of Richman. Fareeha walked towards the freeway exit side of the Unicorn, looking for any errant Downtown cabs that might be in range, when she caught a man approaching her in her peripheral vision.

He wore a grey suit pinstriped green, a scruffy 5-o’clock-shadowed scowl for the police line-up, with a broad stride and a lump behind his suit coat betraying the arms he carried. Instantly tensing, Fareeha focused on him, gauging whether he was planning to do something to her, or to some other unsuspecting civilian. This guy looked like he easily fit the bill for a Shimada suit, immaculately dressed as he was.

“You were in the club, right?”

“Yes.”

“Mercy works tonight. You know the big rule that building has?”

“What is it?”

“No touching the merchandise.”

“There were at least 30 men in there trying to. Do I look like the sort to try that shit?”

Unfazed by Fareeha’s sudden show of spirit, the man simply gave her a strange smile and shrugged “Mercy has her preferences. So, keep your hands and legs to yourself when you’re on this ride, eh?”

He hailed a taxi, leaning in to speak with the driver. Before long he had opened the door for her with a smirk “Keep your head down, and nothing bad’ll happen.”

She stared at him, unmoving, an unspoken statement of her lack of trust.

“All I did was get you a free ride home. Call it a gift in advance for your cooperation,” he chuckled, lighting up a cigarette and ambling away to lean against the Unicorn. Fareeha gave him one last hard look, before reluctantly getting in and directing the taxi homeward bound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter in itself is like a punchline for the AU, I mean, it's like dr jekyll and mr hyde except with 1000% sillier with Angela being a doc by day, popular af stripper by night.  
> more importantly tho there's more plot in this AU now, sorta!!! chapters are still gonna be slow, sorry guys orz;;
> 
> The song featured is 'The Drummer' by Niki & the Dove. good shit, give it a listen (it's actually used in GTAV in the Unicorn for realsies too).


	7. Family Gathering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana meets Hana. There's a car chase involved.

It had been an awfully long time since Ana had seen the immediate area around her humble Sandy Shores home so clean looking. The boys were truly pulling their weight now, not that it took them too long to start on that road and especially so given their disciplinary head start with her. It took longer to teach ‘Junkrat’ how to say please and thank you and address people he didn’t know as ‘mate’ (the compromise since Sir, Miss and Madam were apparently unreachable for him) rather than ‘cunt’. Nevertheless, her yard was the envy of the trailers around her, and Ana couldn’t help but be amused at the man known as Roadhog cooling down in the little paddling pool Fareeha once had. What a bizarre view.

Speaking of her little girl, she was due another visit. Although this time Ana was going to opt for a surprise drop in to see how she was getting along since foiling a robbery, keen to watch her now that she had gotten involved in some nonsense. Proud as she was about her daughter carrying the fighting gene from both parents, Ana wasn’t ultimately sure she wanted her in that kind of danger. She knew where Fareeha’s house was, but needed somewhere to park herself in the interim so she could be sure of her safety. This commute to the city from Blaine County was simply unfeasible, and, after all, she had her eyes on one of those lovely beachside properties in Vespucci.

“Now I have one more favour to ask of you.”

“But I thought fixin’ the fence was the last thing to do today!” Junkrat whined, his already slouching posture in full scoliosis mode. Ana tutted under her breath with a shake of her head; the boy was missing the point.

“I promise this will be fun.”

“Go on then,” the hoarse voice sounded out from behind the gas mask, as he idly rubbed his inked belly.

“I need your help finding an apartment,” she began, raising her voice over the unified groan of intense disappointment “It won’t be boring! You have carte blanche to get me one; that’s right, even if it’s occupied already. Don’t give me the gory details, just free up something nice—and if you manage something spacey I’ll happily consider giving you room to lie your heads down, if you decide to visit the city on your own initiative.”

The duo let out a low hum of dawning comprehension, nodding quickly as understanding turned to excitement. Junkrat giddily ran to his truck, swinging into it by the frame as Roadhog parked his rotund body in the back “We’ll give ye a buzz when we’re all done, not that it’s gonna take particularly long either!”

“As I said boys, no details; a nice apartment without police tape would be best!” Ana called after them, while setting herself into the plastic deckchair towards the Alamo Sea, smiling as she listened to the racket they made becoming more distant, getting right back into this gauche romance novel where she left off. Once she finished this chapter, she’ll follow them down…

* * *

 

“She doesn’t have a _breeze_ ,” Mei chuckled, huddling around her frappachino as the Indian to her side exploded with laughter and Angela’s face contorted into genuine bewilderment. “I know, I thought Satya was kidding! You’d think she would’ve put two and two together after meeting you and seeing Mercy in the same day.”

It took a moment for Satya to compose herself enough to quip “I didn’t realise Fareeha Amari possessed such a naïve soul. To think she has lived in Los Santos all of her life and still retain such adamant cluelessness…”

“On the other hand,” Mei giggled, elbowing Angela with a gratuitously unsubtle wink “Kinda hard to match faces when Fareeha got a good eyeful of everywhere else, eh?”

“Mei, stop! It’s just how I pay my bills!” Angela pleaded with little effect, burying her claret-tinged face behind her hands, and shaking her head furiously as her two friends laughed raucously “It’s amazing she hasn’t realised it yet but, I’m a little afraid she’ll be angry if she does.”

“Hmm?” Satya blinked, cutting her laughter short and wrinkling her nose as the suggestion sat ill with her little plan “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Well you know, she might think I’m trying to fool her into something,” the Swiss doctor suggested, looking downcast, sniffing briefly along with a limp gesture of her hand “Which I’d understand—ugh, you didn’t have to put her up to that date you know.”

“But I wanted to. If she has an issue with it, well she’ll find a way to blame me. I’m banking on it,” Satya huffed, folding her arms and sitting back “I have absolutely watertight sources saying that she’s quite enamoured with you, but thinks you’re too good for her. Say she starts looking for Mercy, and then realises you’re one and the same. I don’t think she’d be annoyed, more so relieved, once it sets in.”

“You’re 100% sure?”

The surgeon frowned and waved it off dismissively “You see a person’s true colours when you keep them on their toes like I do. Trust my instinct on this, it’ll work out. I see no harm on keeping appearances as Mercy should Fareeha start turning up more often--.”

“I still can’t fathom you talked her into going to the Unicorn,” Mei observed astutely, peering over the lip of her plastic cup.

“—because then she will see that such imagined socioeconomic barriers mean little. This city is where dreams are meant to come true, no? The film industry thrives on the little person overcoming the odds and getting the girl in the end.” Satya pointedly looked at Angela, who seemed to concede the point with little fight left in her dropped shoulders and exasperated sigh. Noticing Mei had scowled somewhat in the meantime, she turned her attention back to her “Now, Mei, how’s Zarya doing?”

* * *

 

The din of a particularly industrious air conditioner and the faint dissonant melody of simulated explosions and gunfire drew grumpy Fareeha over to her roommate’s (or host kid, as Hana insisted on) door. Remembering that knocking was a privilege that the gamer didn’t give a faint notion of a fuck about, she simply opened the door only to be confronted with an absolutely Arctic wind.

“H-Hana!? What in the—This is _way_ too fucking cold!”

“Huh? Oh, psh, it’s how I exist in perfect harmony with my superhuman metabolism turning me into a pressure cooker _and_ my beast-mode desktop PC being the surface of the sun,” the Korean huffed, waving her off with the mouse-wielding hand “How the heck else do you think I stay matchstick thin while horsing through mountains of chips and soda?”

“Fair p-point,” Fareeha shivered, shrinking away from the glacial temperatures to grab a scalding hot coffee and stand under the midday sun for a minute in order to feel human again. Or as it turned out, she ended up lingering slightly longer than she intended, as the rays hissed into her skin with little care for sun cream. Retreating indoors with a hearty dose of internal self-admonishment monologue, she realised Hana was no longer in her room.

Hana, for her part, had heard a combination of drumming knuckles in a vague rhythm combined with annoying doorbell ringing in the meanwhile, and assumed incorrectly that Fareeha was out greening it up. Thus the gamer decided to answer the door with the urgency of a snail, reluctant to pull away from her game. Halfway through a prepared ‘we don’t want any’ rant, the words died in her throat when she made eye contact with an old lady—with one freakin’ eye.

“You’re not Fareeha,” she stated, a strange glimmer in her eye matching the playful smile on her worn face. Hana was on guard, but still trying to scan through the exact reason such a sight made her feel that way, until the old lady continued. “Ah, where are my manners? I am Ana Amari, just visiting my daughter. Who might you be?”

Well that made everything click into place. “Oh, uh, man. This is awkward. She told me not to answer the door if you called.”

“Is that so? Ah, how it pains me. You must be her new squeeze then, hmm? No wonder she’s reluctant to let me meet you, trying to keep you a secret!” Ana laughed the kind of laugh that Hana imagined had gargled whiskey and tobacco by the tonne in her day “You see, I fancy myself quite the storyteller, which seems to only embarrass my little bird.”

“Huh, really? WHOA-- waaiiiiiiiit wait _wait **wait**_ , hold the perpetual fuck up, her new squeeze?” Hana baulked, appalled at the idea “The fuck do you mean?”

“Language,” Ana waved her finger sternly, which made the gamer curiously compelled to acquiesce “Now, I may be old, but I know a reasonable amount of millennial linguistics. No need to pretend and hide the impressive age gap, I know the genes of a master seducer run through Fareeha’s veins too—whom else did she get them from?”

“Listen here ya old bat, I’m not fucking your daughter!” Hana snapped with a fiery yell, her voice shattering Ana’s concentration before she could gleefully extrapolate on her myriad tales of seduction “I’m just sharing the place here. She saved my life in that gas station, and I moved here because she makes me feel pretty damn secure. I pay my rent, it’s all good. If anything she’s basically my mom except cool.”

“Mother, you say,” she pondered, scratching her chin idly.

“Hana? Is everything okay? What’s going on?”

Before the artist popularly known as D.Va could answer, she was disarmed and distracted by a bizarre grin on Ana’s face, and suddenly found herself yanked out into the street in the direction of Vespucci. The retiree gleefully declared “Worry not, little hare! As part of the family, you just need a quick introduction to the rest of us!”

“Don’t I at least get a goddamn say in this?!” Hana screamed, legs suddenly encountering a level of speed she never expected to be privy to (apart from the highly unlikely event that she would be spirited away to Mt Chiliad where all those lunatic monks liked to chill despite the shitload of cougars up there—at least cougars are a good incentive to run like hell). Anger laced together with mild panic as this alarmingly spry old fuck dragged her blocks and blocks away towards the La Puerta docks—not too far away from her old Little Seoul haunt.

The murderous running pace ground to a relieving halt, almost to the point where Hana’s face almost collided with the back of Ana’s head, hidden by a dark blue veil and a murky grey-green hood. Quietly mourning her legs which now cried with pain from the spontaneous exercise, Hana’s following rebuke was smacked back down her throat when Ana’s hand clamped around her mouth. The woman’s posture had completely changed from relaxed and playful to something coiled up and ready to strike, but at what, Hana wasn’t really sure of.

Ana had intended to bring her to meet Reinhardt, but instead of the little serene oasis in the middle of the grey desert that his humble coast tour stand offered beside the dockside restaurant, she found the poor old lion of a man squaring up to a group of suited men all wearing smug looks and visible gun holsters as the boat that he whiled away his spare time on in the Pacific was now confined to the back of a trailer waiting to be towed. She could hear him plead his case as well as demand to see papers proving the legality of what they were attempting, to wilfully deaf ears. The Shimada trying to rob him of what joy he had left? The former Merryweather sniper ground her teeth and snarled; there was no way she’d let that happen, and despite the situation she couldn’t think of anything better to introduce Hana to: the fierce loyalty the Amari clan had was a mark of familial pride. It was time to show her just what it meant to be one.

“Follow me as silently as you can,” Ana whispered to her companion “That man is very important to myself and Fareeha too, and it looks like these men wish to intrude on his life. While the Shimada are a fearsome lot to be respected, I refuse to abide by anyone dear to me being put in such situations. We’ll be stopping them.”

“Okay you gotta be huffing the MJ from that Vespucci corner shop because those guys have fucking **_guns_** ,” Hana squeaked, feeling her stomach turn in on itself in ways that gymnasts would even hurl at. “Your kid got me out of the line of fire and you’re gonna throw me into it again?”

“Have more faith in me,” Ana tutted, looking genuinely stung by the thought enough to forget what she was doing momentarily. “Just follow whatever order I give, alright? I always keep family safe. Now, let’s go.”

She spared a grateful thought that Reinhardt was as vivacious and passionate as ever in arguing his case, providing a wonderful albeit unknowing distraction for the duo to sneak around some vehicles. Ana stopped and signalled Hana to do the same, the two crouching down behind a jeep as she noticed a lone Shimada footsoldier smoking alone and leaning against the truck attached to the trailer. “Stay here,” she whispered, before slithering up behind the man. Hana heard only a faint snap and watched him crumple limply in Ana’s arms as she hurriedly lowered him to the ground, patting him down for a set of keys that gave them access into the driver’s seat.

Unlocking the door, she shooed Hana in to the passenger seat before starting up the vehicle herself, glancing at the mirrors and setting her jaw tightly when she noticed the Shimada looking confused at the truck. Best to floor it, Ana thought, doing exactly that and slamming the gas to the baffled yells of the suits, Reinhardt and Hana around her, barely audible over the smashing sound and the screech of rubber.

Horns screamed and yelled as the massive truck slithered with extreme difficulty between lanes along South Rockford Drive more often than not smacking hapless commuters in their cars into the oncoming side or onto the sidewalk. Ana fought the broad steering wheel for a breathless few seconds, betraying no frustration even as Hana hurdled around the cockpit like a pinball, shrieking in pain and panic alike.

“Safety first,” the old woman muttered with the click of her seatbelt, not-too-subtly imploring Hana to do the same. It was a good call too, as suddenly the two of them almost embedded their faces into the dashboard had they not buckled in what with a vehicle deliberately ramming them from the back. Hana looked at the elder Amari in horror, lacking the words to ask just what the hell they were meant to do now.

“Hmm, I suppose they really do want Dearheart’s humble sailboat,” Ana mused, casually adjusting the side mirror to catch sight of 3 sleek black jeeps with bright green accents declaring their allegiance to the Shimada. One of them was adamant about bridging the gap, so much so that there were two men trying to clamber onto the cargo end of the truck, and despite the speed they were all going at, they were getting damn close to success. “Ah, dedication.”

The gamer couldn’t believe the indifference she was hearing, less so the whole fucked up situation she managed to end up in to begin with, too caught up in the situation to pay one iota of attention to that rather cute nickname—presumably that Reinhardt guy. How was it that Fareeha was cool and safe but her mom was literally every possible opposite ever? This was the very fucking definition of getting out of the frying pan and into the fiery inferno!

The truck swerved past the Maze Bank Arena into East Los Santos, a bevy of warehouses, factories and junkyards alike. Ana was angling to lose them in the maze of freeway junctions, but it seemed more had joined the party. Another jeep closed in, just as the two men succeeded in their dozen or so attempts to hop onto the truck, but it began ramming frantically into its matching companions. The artist currently known as D.Va managed to set aside her abject terror, peering at the din behind them “So the two chucklefucks are on this damn thing, but—another car like theirs is just wailing on the other ones? That can’t be one of their dudes driving it…”

“It probably isn’t, but as to who the identity of our saviour is, well, I have no guesses,” Ana chuckled, jovially jerking the wheel into an astronomically hard right. Hana yelped as the seatbelt she wore threatened to fracture her shoulder and hip, whining in pain but more so once she realised the sharp turn didn’t shake the new arrivals.

“Motherfuckers,” the Korean student hiccupped, wincing at what felt like fresh bruises blossoming on her where the belt bit into her skin joining the ones surely there after being tossed around the truck interior like a salad. She would have complained more, but given their situation it seemed like it was going to be a long time before she could wriggle out of this truck, when all of a sudden something caught her eye. The sight of a raven black mane and telltale hints of gold on the next person to try get aboard betrayed the identity of at least one of those behind the wheel of the rogue jeep, and it was an incredibly welcome one at that “H-HOLY **_SHIT_** IT’S EOMMA--!”

“What?” Ana muttered glancing up into the rear view mirror, before her lone eye widened as much as Hana’s watching the new arrival make a dangerous leap onto the trailer “Well I’ll be! It’s my little bird!”

The pro gamer fixed her full, nervous attention on Fareeha who ducked behind the boat as gunfire sounded from across her position. It appeared that the men would just flank her and potentially kill her there and then, when suddenly the ship’s boom swung 90 degrees and knocked the two attackers clean off of the trailer and presumably under whatever traffic was behind them. Of course, Hana could only celebrate giddily at the combo that Fareeha achieved, though it died quickly enough when the second jeep unloaded its three occupants onto the trailer. Oh shit.

The trio were armed with blunt weapons rather than firearms, a paltry reassurance but it meant that there was just that much more time to seize in order to bail the cornered pilot out. Hana’s veins surged with adrenaline as flight instincts switched to fight, determined to get Fareeha back for saving her ass in that gas station. “Keep the truck steady, I’m—I’m gonna help eomma!”

“Her name is Fareeha,” Ana mumbled, unaware of the nickname, still nodding in agreement all the same to Hana’s plan “Be careful out there little hare, I need both of you alive.”

The gamer rolled down the window, spying a route of handholds and footrests that she could use, and began slowly inching her way around the truck to the trailer. The rush of freezing air didn’t distract her, but rather honed her focus in that much more and helped her climb to her destination. Crouching beside the prow of the boat, she looked at the boom and then at the men who were partly trying to keep their own grounding on the trailer whilst approaching Fareeha. Maybe she could try that clothesline thing again… With all of her might, Hana seized the ajar boom and yelled “Hey **_dickheads_** , think fast!” before shoving it over.

It swivelled around, and took at least one man out who accordingly disappeared under the traffic behind them, but the other two indeed thought fast and caught the boom with some difficulty. Ignoring Fareeha but singling out Hana, they angrily returned the boom with extra force, colliding with the pro gamer with a violent clang and toppling her off of the trailer—if not for her aggressively clinging to the boom with superhuman strength as she now dangled very precariously over the rapidly moving asphalt below, which turned to a 30 foot drop when the chase turned back onto the Olympic Freeway. Ana grimly observed, but Fareeha roared in fury, moving quickly as the Shimada underlings were distracted by their new and highly vulnerable target.

Hana winced, locking her arms around the boom and ignoring how tired they were starting to get, but also noting with pain that the force of that thing hitting her, she _miiiiight_ have broken something. _Goddamn_ was she not cut out for this type of bullshit. She tried to swing her legs up to help secure her hold on the boom, but the way her torso screamed in agony all but confirmed that some ribs might’ve snapped or fractured when the damn thing crashed into her. E-Cola was fucking paying for this hospital visit, as long as this venture didn’t put her in the morgue first.

Fareeha pulled one man back, extending her leg and tripping him backwards, using his momentum to further push him off of the trailer and out of mind. The next suit noticed, swinging his crowbar at her which she managed to duck in time and get behind him, quickly grabbing the ends and yanking it back so it was choking him. They struggled, until she kicked the back of his knee and forced him to buckle, twisting the crowbar around in his grip until he could hold on no more, and kicked the tumbling man off. Now in possession of a shiny new crowbar, she glanced at the last jeep with hostiles in it, then at her roommate dangling perilously from the ship. Priorities beckoned as the chase moved back into the city; Fareeha climbed around the boat towards the boom, sitting atop of it with her legs tightly anchoring her in place and leaning over “Hana! Hana, can you swing your legs up? I’ll hold onto them, and you shimmy towards me!”

“I can’t!” Hana called back, gritting her teeth as she could feel her limitations of pain and strength alike “I think I broke my fucking ribs!”

“Shit,” Fareeha mumbled, wide-eyed as she frantically looked for some kind of solution she could cobble together. This was not going to be Hana’s second time unlucky, not if she could help it.

Looking behind her as they entered Pillbox Hill, the jeep that Reinhardt drove both of them to the chase started to hang back as a huge white van coming from nowhere absolutely _ploughed_ through the last Shimada vehicle, turning it over once, twice, three times until it sat on its roof. Ana braked steadily, bemused; the truck came to a halt, and Fareeha hurriedly scurried underneath Hana’s precarious position and caught her in her arms, receiving a pained yelp almost in her ears for her trouble. Reinhardt stumbled out of the borrowed Shimada jeep, staring at the van which popped out a chirpy Brit—who Fareeha recognised from the other day.

“Awright? Thanks for apprehending these goons! Been a real pain in me arse tryin’ t’nab ‘em,” she chuckled, as a horde of what looked like SWAT team members pouring out of the back of the van and surrounding the overturned vehicle, barking at the trapped Shimada men inside to cooperate. Fareeha’s bewilderment grew _exponentially_ in retrospect. “Now loves, if y’don’t mind terribly—Mind buggering off? Don’t want you getting on the wrong end of the other part of the law here. You can take the van—I’ll have someone pick it up later.”

She chucked the keys into Hana’s outstretched hand (good aim considering there were a good few metres separating them as they stood listlessly on this intersection amid all of Downtown’s construction), and whistled as she strode over to the circle of heavily armed and armoured people.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here,” Hana hissed, offering the keys to Fareeha “I think that big fucker can bring his own boat home.”

* * *

 

Once they were sure that Reinhardt had not only returned his boat to where it belonged in his stretch of the docks, but also that he was alright after the whole endeavour (he was, he was more concerned about the wellbeing of Fareeha and Hana alike), Fareeha brought Ana to Vespucci, following her directions exactly to her new place—apparently. Her rather simple question about how she managed to finally get such a sought-after property—money wasn’t the hard part but more just the queues of people waiting to get their hands on it—had a simple enough answer, but instead a dozen more questions blossomed once the van parked opposite a building with two extraordinarily scruffy men outside of it.

“Jamison, Mako! How are you both doing?” Ana greeted them warmly, so much so that Fareeha exchanged baffled looks with Hana. “Oh, this place is perfect, is it cleaned up? Roomy?”

“Place is pristine, I swear! The media mogul prick who had this apartment originally left it nice n’ clean even if we made ‘m crap himself. Least the last sliver o’decency he had got him to do that outside the premises. Big and spacious premises at that too, merged two apartments into one big one up top, and a massive garage below!” Junkrat excitedly prattled on, gesticulating wildly along with his tale before finishing it with an over the top flair as if presenting the whole thing to the group. “A property almost worth dyin’ for, and it’s aaaaall yours, Nan!”

Hana chuckled briefly at his ridiculous overenthusiasm as well as the bizarreness of the situation on a whole, until pain turned it into a low hiss.

“Thank you Jamison,” the elder Amari hummed, clasping his good hand between hers and shaking it “You and Mako are free to use the garage as you wish. I think after a long day today, I might just rest a while.”

“Well deserved! I mean, when you texted me saying ye had just been on a massive car chase, we knew we had to make this new gaff something special!” he beamed, glowing with energy after her praise.

Fareeha pursed her lips, the tide of ever-materialising questions building up on her tongue. How the hell did she find some ruffians from Down Under up in Blaine County? And secondly, what the hell did they do to that ‘media mogul prick’? Her mother sure knew how to pick them…

“Girls, that was a wonderful day of bonding, but maybe next time we should have something less… dramatic,” Ana suggested with a wry smile.

“Hey, today’s all on you! We didn’t have to pick a fight with some Yakuza but nooooo,” Hana grumbled, almost doubling over holding her sides when her accusatory pointing pinched something around her injured torso “Fuck that hurts. Ow, ow, ow--!”

“Oh, I know well it is,” she sighed, acquiescing to that particular charge “And that’s my fault. I’ll think of something to do that’s less ridiculous.”

“That’s impossible for you,” Fareeha rolled her eyes, finally finding her voice “I hope you’re serious about taking it easy for a while. I need to get Hana seen to, so no adventures.”

“I’ll do my best,” her mother grinned at her, waving her off as she ascended the steps into the apartment, calling out to the injured gamer “Apologies, little hare! I’ll make today up to you!” The miscreant duo shuffled into the garage below after she shut the door, adding their own enthusiastic farewell, as Fareeha helped Hana into the van and started it up.

“I’m so sorry about everything that happened today,” the pilot began, carefully winding the vehicle around the little twists and turns until reaching the main thoroughfare “This is why I really didn’t want you to meet my mother, but shit I didn’t think she’d turn it into this whole epic.”

“I mean, I totally get why you didn’t now, but…” Hana smiled sheepishly, rubbing her aching ribs “She’s still pretty cool, objectively speaking—cos like she was doing all this Solid Snake shit and then she was like ‘grrr witness me’ driving the truck and—okay I could’ve done without getting fuckin’ owned by a boat but I was trying to stop those dudes hurting you too, cos I wanted to get you back for saving me. Looks like you just had to save me again huh. Thanks, though. I guess hanging around your mom made me brave enough to try it.”

“Yeah, while I’m glad you got my back-- she’s got a bad habit of doing that with people. It seems I’ve been put on this earth to fix whatever mistakes she made,” Fareeha replied with a hint of amusement, though her look was rather melancholy. Morningwood was quieter than usual as they drove through, but all the better, because the sight of traffic right now might’ve made the pair of them uneasy lest some Shimada followed them back. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a boat hit me?”

The Egyptian hummed, pondering a plan as the van steadily rose up the Hills into Richman “I’ll get Satya to have a look at you. Fuck knows I’m not ferrying her over here, I’ve got something else to do.”

“Oh sweet,” Hana nodded, before catching the last part as Fareeha turned in to the driveway on Ace Jones Drive—home sweet home “Hey, wait, huh? What’s your plan then Top Gun?”

“ _Top Gun?_ ”

The Korean stared in puzzlement as her roommate parked and rounded the van to her door “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen that film. I’m the shut-in, here!”

“I have, I have, calm down or you’ll make your injury worse” Fareeha hushed, carefully helping her out.

“I can walk y’know,” Hana began, but as soon as she moved to slap the pilot’s hands away she shrivelled up as a huge wave of pain seared through her body “Fuck!”

It wasn’t long before Satya picked up her phone, one of the few times Fareeha was glad for it. “ _Hello, Vaswani here. Who’s calling?_ ”

“Your best friend,” Fareeha rolled her eyes, unlocking her door and shuffling Hana in while the phone was pressed to her cheek by her shoulder “Look, I don’t know if you heard about some car chase in East Los Santos but my new roommate got caught as collateral and she’s back here complaining of pains around her ribs. Can you do a house visit?”

“ _Fareeha, I’m a surgeon, I don’t really do house visits._ _Besides, who the hell is your housemate?_ ”             

“All will be revealed,” the pilot replied with a put-on mysterious tone to her voice “Just come by, she needs some kind of medical professional to tell her she’s not gonna die. She’ll let you in. I’m out tonight so you can forget about a lift, especially when your car should be fixed.”

“ _My car is functional, thank you very much. Wait… You haven’t shacked up with Angela yet?_ ” Satya sounded amused when she probably should’ve sounded annoyed at her. Either way, jovial surgeons made the Egyptian rather uneasy.

“…No. I’m actually going to go to the Unicorn again,” Fareeha replied hesitantly, briefly glowering at Hana’s contorting expressions and heckling “Shut up Hana, for an injured party you’re pretty fucking lively.”

“ _Ah, very well. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be around to your home soon and have a look at our vivacious patient_.”

“Appreciated,” Fareeha answered, hanging up. “Are you going to take it easy?”

“Yeah, sure, not as easily as some other people living here,” Hana grinned, putting her hands on her hips since folding them just put pressure on her delicate torso, and that was untold pain in itself. “Have fun. Here’s thinking my lifestyle was gross. Maybe if you’re lucky you might catch that Mercy chick.”

“How the fuck do you know about Mercy?” she baulked, stepping back as if physically stunned “Have you even gone to the Vanilla Unicorn--?”

“Oh **_FUCK_** no, no way. I’ve got much better shit to do than that,” Hana grimaced, waving her hands in front of her face and shaking her head rapidly like that’d absolutely hammer home her disinterest “No, I just hear a bunch about it from dudes in the chat who live in the state, or occasionally in Uni whenever I haaaave to be in for a dumb lecture or whatever. She’s kinda well known in Los Santos, but not, if that makes sense. Like the worst kept secret of the city or some shit.”

“Not really, but I’ll take your word for it,” the Egyptian grumbled, walking towards the door “Try to be upright until Satya gets here so you can let her in. I’ll be back later.”

Hana posed, albeit with less panache than she’d like to, beaming from ear to ear at Fareeha “Aye aye Captain Sleaze! Go get your recommended nightly allowance of strippers!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is my longest chapter yet. Thanks for all the love everyone!! I'm really glad people are enjoying this :D!


	8. Safe Word

The sight of the neon sign greeted Fareeha as she stepped out of her car, feeling a tiny nervous tingle to her limbs with every footstep closer to the door. Whether that was the aftershocks of today’s extraordinary events or anything to do with the elusive Mercy she sought tonight, she wasn’t too sure which but she sure was going to find out. Seemed Zarya wasn’t working, judging by the grumpy looking man looking more adept at bodybuilding rather than keeping order outside. Still, for reasons pertaining probably to Zarya’s allow list, he nodded at Fareeha and let her in without a word. Going by the din that exploded outside almost as soon as the door closed, the gesture was greatly unappreciated by the handful of punters waiting who immediately got rowdy.

Fareeha turned the corner and was immersed into the wall of sound, but the level of bodies from last time was greatly diminished; there were only just over a dozen ‘customers’ milling around, with a few buxom staff stalking about for any interested looks and loose wallets. Oddly enough, they all glanced at her, and wore a variety of curious expressions that all seemed to share a running theme of intrigue, though her fellow clients didn’t seem to care too much that she was the only female non-employee present. Regardless, one thing was for sure: Mercy wasn’t here tonight.

“Hey there sugar,” one of the ‘floor staff’ had approached her with a deep smirk “We don’t get many handsome strangers like you here; wanna complementary dance round back?”

“Ah, um,” Fareeha eloquently began, glancing towards the lonely pole where she had borne witness to someone who inspired the most staggering lust she had ever felt in her life “I’m pretty new, as you said. I thought Mercy might be here tonight, guess I was wrong.”

“Is that so, babe? Well…” The woman stood back and glanced over the pilot with a penetrating gaze, enough to make her shift around on the spot like she was certainly being undressed by her eyes alone. “Gimme a few seconds, and let’s see what ol’ Sapphire here can do for you.”

‘Sapphire’ sashayed away towards the private rooms, the deliberate sway of her hips not quite hypnotising Fareeha the same way as it might have one or two of the men here. She stood listlessly for a few minutes, trying not to make eye contact with any other uniquely named women here and less so the men, until Sapphire waltzed back out towards her and whispered urgently in her ear “Follow me, Mercy’s hiding round back. She heard you were here and wants to give you a special treat.”

“What?”

“Y’heard me,” Sapphire chuckled as she stepped back allowing her a modicum of space “This never happens, it’s a big deal, so enjoy this special occasion—it’s through here.”

Fareeha was led behind a curtain towards a row of individual chairs hiding in separate cubicles, and pointed to a particularly secluded chair hidden from the rest of the rows. Sapphire winked and said “Close your eyes champ, you’re gonna get a real nice surprise.”

Obeying, all Fareeha could discern was the sound of heels clicking as Sapphire walked further away, the brief hum of whatever pulsating dance beat the DJ was playing, until another heel-wearing presence joined her side. For whatever reason, this person opted to remain silent as long as possible until the pilot began to squirm in her seat, feeling like she was being judged somehow and wondering if this surprise wasn’t exactly all as it might seem.

“My, my, my, it is you after all,” a foreign voice purred, which Fareeha had difficulty pinning down between France or Germany—it sounded like a lovechild of both “I must say, when I danced last time, I wasn’t expecting to see such a statuesque stunner among the usual fare of men. You can  open your eyes, good-looking.”

Meekly, the Egyptian obeyed; once one eye peeled itself, the other quickly joined when her vision was filled by Mercy standing before her wearing nothing else but lace underwear and an extremely amused smirk on her face. Not at all expecting to see her let alone seeing her with so very little on, Fareeha’s back slammed into the chair as she sat up absolutely rigid, with no earthly clue where to look.

“Don’t be shy; weren’t you looking for me after all?” Mercy asked, casually putting her heel by Fareeha’s head; in one simple motion she coaxed her to follow the trail up her leg to the inside of her thigh and lingering over the last semblance of decency she wore “I thought I’d treat you to something a little special if you came back, so I asked all the girls to keep an eye out for you. Who would’ve thought you’d deliver yourself to me so readily?”

No words but sputtering attempts at syllables answered her; Fareeha couldn’t stop herself from ogling the dancer’s inviting curves up to her breasts, the sweep of her collarbone and shoulders up to that gorgeous face more at home in an idealised painting rather than a strip club. She gasped wide-eyed as Mercy took that as the wordless go-ahead to begin her private dance, bringing her shin down onto the armrest and pressing her palms against the wall behind Fareeha, letting her exposed body undulate into the pilot’s face, and her enraptured client mirrored the movement from her spot as much as she could without realising it.

Stepping back and turning around, the dancer placed her feet on either side of the chair and with her hands weaving through her tied back black hair and slowly grinded against the pilot’s lap, receiving a breathless sigh against her spine. She never thought Fareeha could be so adamantly well-behaved, even as she could sense distinctly the pilot furiously fighting for total stillness when she all but _quaked_ in need underneath the show.

In standing up for her next particular lusty trick, Mercy peeked around to see where the bouncer for this particular area stood; he was a diligent, hardworking man who was very good at enforcing the look-but-don’t-touch rule, but right now she was all about her flustered customer breaking that very rule. And maybe, just maybe, given their private booth being tucked away in such a manner to block any incriminating visuals, they might just get away with it.

With a lazy smirk, Mercy turned to Fareeha, sitting on one armrest while draping her legs over the other, one hand supporting her head with its corresponding elbow against the wall, the other drawing faint lines around the crook of Fareeha’s neck.

“What about th-the rules?” she mumbled, hands hovering around Mercy, literally brought upon her lap and trying to swallow back the tide of want that swirled dangerously within. Fareeha had her share of encounters and absolutely none of them inspired this same dangerous thrill, or the willingness to toe such a fine line. The tiny sliver of even-minded common sense observed amid the tide of lust but was unable to seize the reins of self-control; the very idea of which became more of a distant mirage as this whole palaver went on, and not at all helped by Mercy’s glee in ignoring the safe boundaries of venue rules.

As if on command, the dancer leaned in, sure to press her body up against Fareeha’s, and whispered “Rules are made to be broken, no? Go on, _touch_ me.”

“Won’t that get me thrown out?” she whimpered, eyes firmly transfixed on Mercy’s which glowed an eye-contact-enhanced lilac in the mood lighting above them, like hapless prey hypnotised by a prowling huntress. All Mercy could do in response was giggle and coil a loose strand of Fareeha’s hair around her finger.

“Then let’s leave before that has to happen,” the dancer purred, done toying with her locks and instead tracing her strong jaw “We can go back to my place, so you don’t have to worry about any silly rules like that.”

The sentence alone was enough to almost effectively blue-screen Fareeha, let alone the fact that it was indeed suggested by none other than Mercy herself, and wiped all sense of coherency from her as well as the distinct thought that someone out there wouldn’t be terribly happy about this dalliance. Where had Fareeha gotten that from? Who mentioned it to her? That worrying string of thoughts didn’t linger too long in her mind at that point, not when Mercy’s lips got tantalisingly close to hers only to whisper “Let’s get going, gorgeous.”

Every sinew, every muscle, every single individual atom in Fareeha’s body from that point onwards  was singularly dedicated to getting Mercy to her place, and working herself up (though thanks to Mercy she didn’t need much for the latter) to what might lie in store for her there. The dancer sprang to her feet with a cheeky glint in her eye, beckoning Fareeha to follow with a curling finger and a wink. As if charmed, the pilot’s body responded ahead of her brain, propelling her after the other woman on auto-pilot, watching her slip on a dressing robe and slip out of the side entrance for employees.

Outside, Fareeha’s loyal blue Obey Tailgater lay in wait, which Mercy approached only once the click of the keys in the pilot’s hand was reciprocated by the vehicle’s lights flashing briefly as it unlocked. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife, Fareeha’s nerves on a similar blade-edge just from getting into this situation as she took to the driver’s seat, trying desperately to focus on turning the keys in the ignition and attempting her level best at ignoring Mercy’s sly hand on her thigh.

“Where’re we heading?”

“Head to Downtown Vinewood, I’m around Gentry Lane. I’ll give you directions when you’re closer.”

The subtext wasn’t really subtext at that point, not with that look in her eyes. Fareeha swallowed in a vain bid to fix her dry throat, wondering if she’ll be getting another set of directions to bring Mercy close to something _else_ “If you behave I’ll be quick.”

“Aaah, if I must—but you know, that’ll change once we cross the threshold into my home.”

“Counting on it,” the pilot murmured as she stepped on the gas with less care than normal, powering the vehicle towards Legion Square along Vespucci Boulevard. The Tailgater roared, tyres screeching in unison with the engine, and the already paltry traffic brooked little haste in getting the fuck out of the way of this vehicle with determination. Pillbox Hill late night shift workers blinked and the howling car was already into Hawick before they acknowledged the sound.

“Easy there captain, we’re not taking off until I say so,” Mercy chuckled, although she couldn’t quite hide her worry at the alarming speed limit breaking that Fareeha was ruthlessly embarking on. The 20 minute drive became 8, and the Vinewood Hills loomed quickly into view “The left before it takes you up into the hills, that’s Gentry Lane.”

Had the pilot been in any state of clear-minded coherency, she might’ve had a question about how Mercy could suss out any aviation related vocation, as well as just how she happened across an extraordinarily expensive home in such a nice location. But, since Fareeha had different priorities, those were shelved away safely so as not to interrupt her incredible well of lust. The Tailgater turned down the quiet street Mercy indicated, pulling into the driveway of a property that the Egyptian had to estimate as something a little pricier than what her mother managed to steal (for lack of a better description).

“Home sweet home. I think you’ll like it here.” The dancer stepped out of the car, patting her dressing gown pocket for her key, slipping in and quickly closing the door after Fareeha stepped in. As soon as the heavy oak door met its frame, Mercy pulled her into a fiery kiss by her tanktop, soon finding herself picked up and pressed against the door with a dull thud as it deepened. Fareeha dispensed with any last vestiges of meekness from the Vanilla Unicorn and hungrily pressed her firm build against Mercy, yielding a giddy little gasp that she stole away with her tongue.

“Bed, bed, bed,” Mercy rapidly uttered once they broke their kiss for air, idly noting how her tall, dark and handsome fling was having no trouble hoisting her up without the door as support “Straight down this hall, last door on—ah!— your right!”

* * *

 

It was a good few hours before Fareeha saw the door to her own home again, hobbling a little but bursting from the seams with a storm of sensations and feelings and all of them positive. She was only a little surprised when it was a flustered Satya who opened the door, distracted enough to not get right back to needling the hell out of her.

“Oh, you’re back. I was just about to leave. Did you have fun?”

_No teasing?_ Fareeha was sure that after Mercy introduced her to, er, using extracurricular objects in the bedroom that the dancer wasn’t the only one walking funny for the rest of the day. _Did Hana do something?_ “Well, uh, yes. Is Hana going to make it?”

“She’s…” There was a crooning ‘ _baeeeee_ ’ from within the house, and Satya glanced away towards the view of the city just over Fareeha’s shoulder with a vacant stare “…fine. I think she has only bruised ribs, at worst there may be a fracture. It’s miraculous that there’s not been a full break or a concussion—especially not with the way she’s been talking. You’ll obviously have to take her to the hospital itself to find out either way though, which I’d recommend.”

Footsteps leisurely made their way towards the duo, and Fareeha’s eyebrows rose upwards as she watched Satya’s normally composed posture tense when Hana joined them. The pilot gawked—hard to help it when the gamer nonchalantly trotted over only wearing a bra on her upper half, while reasonably clothed elsewhere, and covered in what looked like medical tape around her ribs, presumably the temporary solution to her woes. Her hands mimicked guns firing as she winked and quietly made the accompanying ‘bang’ noises under her breath “Hey Top Gun, you took a while to get home. Got more than just a show huh?”

“Knock it off,” Fareeha huffed, though her mood was much too good to sound anything but amused “You seem better already—look at you, you look like a little tiger with those stripes.”

“Yeah, but I could look more like one if your buddy there got her claws out and sank ‘em _riiiight_ in my back in joy, know what I mean?” Hana winked, with an incredibly unsubtle gesture that amounted to her apparently hugging herself and pretending to scrape her body with her nails. There was an odd imitation of a growl somewhere in the mix. Meanwhile Satya remained unblinking, unmoving, as if coiled to attack, enough for Fareeha to be genuinely concerned for Hana’s immediate wellbeing, enough to tug the gamer by the ear back into the house and out of the way.

“Ow, what the fuck!? Where’ve those hands been? Don’t fuckin’ touch me, ew!”

“Sorry,” the pilot mumbled, rolling her eyes as Hana stomped back into her room “I didn’t think she’d be that kind of trouble.”

Satya shrugged, her expression returning to normal “It’s… different. She was far quieter when you were out. Bravado, I think, was what that was.”

“Huh. Did you mind it?”

“Well, measuring it against the Los Santos grade of catcalling it was rather mild, actually. The typical fare is generally dehumanising the woman involved to a piece of meat.” Fareeha listened; wincing with a snarl as Satya casually illustrated the reason why the men of this state were anathema to her. “In Ms Song’s case she was talking up in front of you, but without that whole degradation aspect, more like she wanted me to, er, degrade _her_.”

“ _Nice_ ,” the Egyptian replied, pinching the bridge of her nose as she breathed deeply “Good to know. Look, sorry for that—ignore her if you can, I’ll see you around.”

“Oh, I didn’t mind much. As I said, better than the typical fare,” Satya cheerfully answered, turning on her heel and walking towards her car “I’ll let you off the hook for now, Amari. Next time I see you, I’ll have many more questions about your little ‘Vanilla’ adventure!”

“I bet.” She slowly closed the door once hearing the surgeon take off, homeward bound. Unsure whether to press Hana about, well, whatever the hell that was with Satya (and not encouraged by the angry sounding stream of Korean escaping the bottom of her door), Fareeha instead opted to go to her own bedroom, woefully empty compared to the bliss found on Mercy’s bed. The hazy thought of what _that_ entailed echoed within the pit of her stomach with a sated, lazy hum of contentment. It took her some time to will herself to sleep, not so much plagued but rather delightfully haunted by her mind replaying the steamy encounter, added to with various ponderings about how else to utilise those toys she was so recently introduced to. Eh, it wasn’t like she was meant to be anywhere tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hana is a pro in many ways but certain social interactions are absolutely her downfall.  
> Sorry about the smut fake-out for those hoping to see some :P perhaps a little later on!


	9. New Phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana streams again, Fareeha chats to Reinhardt after the return of his boat, Lena and Winston have an inventive recruiting strategy.

“Hey everyone joining, today’s stream is gonna be a chill affair with an RTS game. Today’s title iiiis Absolute War and the order of the day is shooting the shit while I outshoot these shits,” Hana quipped into her camera with a wink and a two finger salute. The greetings from all of the new signed-ins poured forth, but quite a number of messages began to pop up asking concernedly about the visible medical tape peeping above the bunny-branded tanktop fabric.

“Oh that? Yeah I kinda got into an accident but I’m alright folks! D.Va’s not going anywhere any time soon. It’s just some character building.”

There was some back and forth banter, though as much as the stream chat tried to find out what kind of accident lead up to their beloved streamer getting that kind of injury, Hana ducked and weaved around the pointed questions, focusing things on the content today. “Alright guys, I’m totes fine! For now, let’s get to business: I’m playing as Egypt and I got most of the Mediterranean seaboard under my belt, so let’s expand northward!”

Just as she selected the option, arranged her units and began being ridiculously undiplomatic to the digital locals in-game, there was a knock on her bedroom door. Timely, she thought, as she chuckled for the benefit of her viewers and gestured off camera “Huh, looks like the reason I picked Egypt to begin with wants to say hello! C’mon in!”

“Hey—oh, shit, are you streaming? Sorry I’ll just--.”

“Nah, c’mere, think of it as being a special guest! Guys, this is my badass host mom who saved my life in that shitty gas station!” Hana chirped, yanking Fareeha into view. “C’mon, say hi!”

“Uh,” the pilot articulately started, brow furrowing out of confusion “Hello.”

She sat stiffly upright as the chat appeared to fall into a cascade of emoticons that she wasn’t terribly sure were meant to convey, and made her a little reluctant to comment much further, so instead she opted to watch her MLG roommate effortlessly harness the audience’s attention. “She’s the best in the world, right here! So I’m paying her tribute by playing as the awesome Egyptians and stopping Rome in its tracks. Right now we’re in… the Helvetii neighbourhood, whatever that country is today in Europe. So Fareeha, care to tell us what cool shit you’ve been up to? Heard you went looking for Mercy, like many poor lost souls of Los Santos try to!”

 _Oh good god, **really**?_ She wondered just how good the camera’s quality was; because she was positive the university-going population of the state just watch her go several shades pale when cornered on such a _particular_ subject. Was Hana trying to get her into more trouble? She hardly was this level of trouble for her own mother, soon pondering if she was one of the very few sane San Andreans alive.

Fuck it, she might as well try and take ownership of the ‘bravado’ her mother and Hana seemed to share alike ( ~~she had a sliver of a thought about it skipping a generation, somehow, when this Korean student was pretty far removed from being Amari flesh and blood~~ ).

“Unlike them, I got more than just looks,” she subtly replied more so for the camera, sitting back with her arms folded and a strange pride emanated from her. It was palpable enough for Hana to briefly stare at her, and for the chat to begin flying at lightspeed with more emoticons but also text radiating bafflement, shock and outrage alike. Though the gamer might’ve _appeared_ surprised, she rolled with the punches well enough and began cackling loudly.

“ _You got **more** than that?_ Hoho! Plenty of braggers in the chat who’ve managed to get by the bouncer think they got winks directly from Mercy herself. What’d you get that’s different, huh?” D.Va grinned, the glint in her eye daring Fareeha to go further and risk putting her foot solidly in her mouth. At least it wasn’t out of maliciousness…? Unfortunately for her though, the pilot was a little bit too cunning to do that, but she felt a passing remark would be enough to wrap that up.

“I don’t want to get your stream taken down for sexual content,” Fareeha smirked casually, an evasive manner about her words. Regardless, Hana’s cackle exploded into a knee-slapping fit, enough to put any Egyptian conquest of the Alpine Helvetii region on hold.

“ ** _Wow_**! Holy **fucking** _shit_! There you have it, someone made it with Mercy and it’s _none_ of you fuckers. I can tell you guys are super goddamn upset, turning my pink stream goddamn green as DJLucio’s wardrobe. Alright Casanova, care to even give us a slip of context or are you just gonna give us _the_ slip?”

“The latter,” Fareeha answered, already standing up with an airy laugh “Sorry, gotta jet. I need to check up on a family friend. If you’re so interested in Mercy, I’ll bring you there when you’re 21.”

The pilot stood up, smiling sweetly at the gawping, silent Hana, before reaching over and ruffling her hair affectionately and giving the stream a quick wave. It took the Korean a couple of seconds to regain speech, enough to scowl and roll her eyes dramatically “Oh ha, ha, real fucking funny. _Gross_.”

* * *

La Puerta Docks sat quietly under the sun with the only real noise being the city hustle and bustle in the distance, seagulls cawing and the quiet, contemplative lap of the waves against both slip and boat alike. Reinhardt whistled a power ballad fave from the 80s as he wiped his boat down, patting the side of it lovingly over the newly emblazoned mythic animal (looked like a cross between an eagle and a lion, from what the pilot could see) on the side. Fareeha smiled with an inward sigh of relief; it looked like the whole debacle was a once off affair, and Reinhardt himself was in good health.

“Hey, Reinhardt!”

“Well, well, well! If it isn’t Fareeha!” he chuckled, turning around and beaming from ear to ear. She squeaked as the giant of a man picked her up and hugged her with a merry laugh, twirling her once but hurriedly putting her down when his back pinched “Ooh, ow! Ugh, age is a terrible pest!”

“Take it easy; don’t overdo it—I’m not a kid anymore you know,” she replied, patting his arm sympathetically as Reinhardt did his best to act like his age just didn’t show there “You doing okay? Looks like you haven’t had any suits visiting you.”

“Mmm! Not a single one since you took flight! I guess you’re no longer the fledgling Ana so fondly describes you as, but with enough wingspan to carry you through death-defying stunts.”

Well if anyone else was as fond of animal terms of endearment as her mother was, it was certainly Reinhardt ‘the big lion’ Wilhelm, especially considering he was her mother’s lifelong friend (along with Jack and Gabe, wherever he went). Although, lately, Mr Wilhelm was far more the _old_ lion that Ana Amari had begun to affectionately describe him as. Fareeha sighed, wondering how Reinhardt never got himself into the centre of such antics when his close friend was trying to destroy Los Santos infrastructure for a casual Friday afternoon.

“Not gonna lie, I’d prefer the quiet retiring life so I won’t have to do that shit again. Is there any chance you can keep mother away from such endangering thrill chasing?” Fareeha looked tired, but attempted to take the edge off with an exasperated smile “It’d be appreciated.”

The look she received was genuinely apologetic, as if the poor man actually felt responsible for her mother more so than her mother did for herself “No guarantees, I’m afraid. I’ve known Ana an awful long time and her vivacious flames have not changed in those 35 years, and probably will not be extinguished until the very end.”

“Yeah well, speaking of those 35 years her antics in the _last fucking **week**_ has aged me about that much,” Fareeha grumbled, sour-faced “She almost got my roommate killed.”

“Ah, would this be the girl who described you as a mother figure? Ana called that welcoming her into the family. I think she passed the test, if there was one.”

“ ** _Ugh_** ,” the pilot growled, her exasperation reaching dangerous levels “Why is she like this? She’s so—so _backwards_ sometimes. Mother tells me not to join the police force, they’re too corrupt; she tells me not to join the army, my life expectancy will be abruptly shorter than before. Meanwhile she’s just dragging a student out into a car chase and nearly gets her turned into paste on the highway. And despite all this, she says _my_ current job is lazy and profiting off dirty money? What does she _want_ from me?”

Fareeha leaned back, eyes skyward as if the patchy clouds would shape themselves into some kind of heaven-sent answer for her, to no avail. Reinhardt hummed in thought, slowly sitting himself on a nearby bench facing out onto the docks with a spade-sized hand on his chin, fingers stroking his beard.

“You know, little bird, I don’t think the old eagle knows what she wants you to do either.”

“I gathered, with how all over the place she’s been.” She rubbed her face with both of her hands, willing the frustration from her and opting for a change of subject “Maybe I should just help you with tours. That might shut her up. Got space on the team?”

“I would love to have you with me! Unfortunately you would have to learn the ways of sailing, what with me having no planes, and I don’t know if I could live with myself if you were grounded rather than soaring above.” Reinhardt paused, before offering Fareeha a soft, twinkling smile “And besides, surely you would be bored of this old man rambling on and on about old tales?”

“Oh stop that. I always enjoyed you talking about the history of your home country,” Fareeha chuckled, ambling towards the bench and sitting down beside him “You made it entertaining—I usually find history kinda boring, but you can make even dusty old pharaohs exciting.”

“Of course! My favourite subject, I will speak candidly of all the twists and turns of the tapestry that is the lineage of dukes, kings and emperors, no matter what country they hail from!” The old man beamed, already becoming animated in his gestures as if getting ready to go on another biographical tangent. The pure joy he delighted in was always so contagious, even the relatively serious and straightforward pilot couldn’t keep her look pensive for too long around him.

“Who was your favourite pharaoh again…?” Fareeha hummed and hawed until she could snatch the syllables out of the furthest corners of her memory “Ramesses the Great, wasn’t it? You always loved talking about him and his absurd amount of wives and kids.”

“Well why not? What I would’ve given to have had so many beautiful wives by the dozen and even more beautiful and strong children by the hundreds!” The tour guide roared with the banter, a hand on his stomach and the other patting the Egyptian’s shoulder. She chuckled quietly with him, but the thought bugged her somewhat, especially when she’d never seen or heard Reinhardt even meaningfully interact with other women beyond casual greeting or acquaintance. Only one ever seemed to rise above the rest. Before she could catch herself, she had already blurted the words out.

“…I don’t remember you ever being around any women, just my mother.”

It hung in the air, enough of a bold statement to completely dispel the old German’s boisterous chatter and let the distant din of city and seagull to fill the gap. The duo looked out onto the water for another long minute or so, until Fareeha felt obliged to revive the conversation, accidentally cutting through Reinhardt’s attempt in the process.

“Little griffin, it was only a matter of ti--.”

“Well, I suppose you were never the womanising type—oh, er, sorry! What were you going to say?”

“Hah… never mind, nothing important at this very moment that can’t be said the next time I see you.” He grinned, white teeth matching his snow-white hair. Fareeha couldn’t help but sense she missed something vital but with that reassurance, she’d just have to eke it out of him next time. Reinhardt glanced over at a group of decidedly lost people with cameras all in hand and then at his watch, nodding once the time made itself apparent to him “A tour is due to start soon, judging by the crowd over there they’re waiting for me to set up. You’ll be coming by again, yes?”

“Of course,” she replied, standing up “If my mother swings by, try to distract her from causing another incident, will you?”

“Again no guarantees, but I will do my best for you!” He stood with her, before wrapping his trunk sized arms around her in a brief squeeze of a hug “Take care Fareeha, til next time.”

“Later,” the pilot answered, waving as she walked up the slope and out of the docks. She had barely turned the corner towards the car park where her Tailgater was before she could hear his lively bark of a laugh in the air, summoning a smile to her face with ease. Regardless, time to head home and see if anyone needed her expertise in the air, and try get back to normalcy.

That is, at least, until she heard the screech of tires and angry yelling in a language she could only tell was anything but English. Gunfire forced Fareeha to seek cover behind one of the parked cars adjacent to her own, because like _hell_ she was going to risk bullets in her ride. What the hell was this about?

“Stop yelling in fucking Japanese! The bitch doesn’t know shit in that language!”

Oh, well that was _courteous_ of them, as well as narrowing it down to a select few people that she figured might be out for her.

“Hey, asshole! You broke the fucking rules!”

 **Uh oh** _._ Fareeha sat upright, spine pressed up against the car door she was leaning on as her mind fervently sifted through her recent memories to find out just why that sounded familiar.

“You messed with the Shimada twice now, you fuck with our VIPs, you fuck with our business!”

This was one hell of a time to have no weaponry to speak of on hand. She still had that crowbar from that chump she threw off the back of the truck trailer, but Fareeha wasn’t really feeling of the mind to add another crime to the list that these guys wanted to punish her for. Either way, time was quickly running out and she still hadn’t figured out an escape plan yet, the urgency intensifying as footsteps began to draw closer to her position.

“Come ooout,” one of them drawled, with the unsubtle cock of his gun. Another cursed under his breath but the details were inaudible, until more gunfire made all of them perk up. “Oh shit, who the fuck?!”

Oh shit, who the fuck indeed, Fareeha agreed, listening to the sound of burning rubber as another vehicle tore the tarmac of Goma Street up towards them. It was a white van, unmarked as it stopped near where she hid, but the pilot had a very good hunch about who might be behind the wheel. The driver peeked out their SMG from the rolled down window and laid suppressing fire as the van’s side door slammed open, with that Englishwoman from those two different times before yelling at her “Oi, pet! Get the fuck in here!”

It would be rude and probably fatal to refuse, so Fareeha found herself running as fast as she humanely could towards her, throwing herself into the van which took off before the door could even fully close. Bullets peppered the back of it, and the Brit slammed the side shut before any of them could slip in. Fareeha lay on her stomach on the sparse upholstery, slowly getting up and sitting against the side of the hollowed out van taking in the side of a lot of weaponry, explosives, body armour and what looked like overalls and masks. Her eyes widened at the equipment, before she made eye contact with the deceptively cheery English girl and her presumed accomplice, a giant of a man with a thoughtful expression on his thickly bearded face.

“…who the fuck are you?” she asked, full to the brim with apprehension, more so at the Brit than the man.

“Well y’recognise me from the other day don’tcha pet? I’m Lena, but you can call me Tracer. This here’s Winston. I’m from MI7 and he’s IAA, and we’re interested in making sure you’re safe.”

“What the fuck,” Fareeha blurted “You’re a fucking secret agent? What the hell would you want with me?”

“Long story,” the man spoke, with a voice so haggard that the pilot didn’t realise his vocal chords were composed of sandpaper and gravel “But the short of it is that the Shimada clan are quite unhappy with you, and there’s another group who might have a similarly negative interest in your continued living. Given that the Shimada have to play by the rules more so than not, this contingent takes priority for us at the moment. This group is called Talon, and they’ve been building up a base of operations in East Los Santos, El Burro Heights more specifically. Usually they’ve been skirting around the outskirts or even the East Coast—but they’ve started to get very active in the last while which worries us.”

“Where do I come into this?” Fareeha asked, not terribly convinced that she was the most appropriate person to be asking to get involved.

“Talon’s interested in you because of stuff your mum did,” Lena explained, glancing at Winston when she wasn’t focusing on their rescue “So think of this as a way to not just keep you safe, but also to deflect their interest more on the government bodies rather than your family, yeah?”

“I see.” So this security firm business was much more than that, if Ana made enemies enough that they’d be keen on taking her out even now. With one answer comes more questions; Fareeha had a hunch that this wasn’t going to be the last time that’d be happening, and with a beleaguered sigh she asked “…so what do you want me to do?”

“D’ya ever get the want to blow some shit up?” Lena, or rather ‘Tracer’ asked with an infectious grin “Heh, sorry about that first meeting. Didn’t know how well it’d go if I just asked how yer mum was doing. But seriously, we need you to help me blow some shit up. That warehouse in El Burro Heights needs to go, and given how you’ve done in foiling the Shimada you’re actually a pretty good candidate. You navigated those perils real well, so this’ll be a walk in the park for ya.”

“Don’t tell me, we’re driving there now so you can take care of it ASAP,” Fareeha realised, pinching the bridge of her nose. When the fuck was she going to get a holiday from this nonsense?

“Oop! Y’got it in one, soz babe,” Tracer sheepishly grinned, shoulders pulled up and hands up like she just got caught red-handed “Put those overalls on and we’ll kit you out with some goods. Winston’s on comms, and I’ll be there in the thick of it so you’re not alone. You know how to use a gun, right?”

“My mother owns a high powered sniper rifle and can dissemble any firearm she gets her hands on,” Fareeha nonchalantly answered, already wriggling into the dusty cornflower-blue jumpsuit over her clothes “I wouldn’t be her daughter if I didn’t know how to point and shoot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this as the new Halloween update is dropped! I know where I'll be for the next few hours.


	10. Overwatch Initiative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena finally gets Fareeha to blow shit up; Satya expresses genuine concern for a change and Hana starts calling the Amaris family.

El Burro Heights, Los Santos.

The van parked at the base of the dirt road network, crisscrossing over the Palomino Highlands to the east of the city, with the gate to the Murrietta Oil Field some 500 metres to the vehicle’s collective left. Given that Fareeha hadn’t observed much of this particular part of Los Santos other than the dozens of warehouses and factories that seemed sparsely staffed if not out of business altogether, she was hesitant. For all she knew the place could be an entire _fortress_ of Talon troops, and she was just a goddamn civilian pilot that some secret agents somehow figured would be perfect for this, probably staring death in its stupid skeletal face.

Whatever the hell their reasoning, she’ll probably never know; classified and all that shit. The city-wide car chase she was embroiled in was purely to stop her crazy mother from getting her poor roommate killed, not a test to see if these governmental chucklefucks could use her as a whipping girl or something—even if Lena did offer to make the law look the other way regarding Fareeha should that be required. Their tone and affable bearing towards her seemed genuine, but she was wary nonetheless.

“Lookin’ good, babe!” Lena beamed, gesturing at her with a thumbs-up and snapping her out of her reflective reverie. Her face changed as something twigged in her mind “Oh, actually, you’re going to need a codename. That’s why I’m Tracer over comms, yeah? Fareeha, Fareeha… Fareeha, hmm…”

“ _Stop_ ,” the pilot whined, burying her face in her hands. The only person she wanted murmuring her name repeatedly was Mercy ( ~~or hell, if Angela’s still interested, but she hadn’t really tried calling her either since…~~ ), not this freckly stick of a woman.

“You’re Egyptian right? What could we use as a codename from there…?”

“Pharaoh?” Fareeha limply suggested with a half shrug of her shoulders, recalling her conversation with Reinhardt barely a couple of hours ago, not that her heart was really in this archaic nickname.  ( ~~The rest of her wondered if she was getting used to high adrenaline events happening almost consecutively to her all of a sudden.~~ ) Winston chuckled as he offered them the firepower they’d need in case they got into any situations, sensing her true reaction to Lena’s idea. Pistols with silencers secured onto the muzzle were placed into her care by spade-sized hands along with knives, handfuls of ammunition, and body armour beneath the jumpsuits that made up their array; Fareeha tightened her jaw, she must’ve killed some of the Shimada when throwing them off the truck, but killing with a gun was going to be a whole new boundary to cross.

“Pharaoh, Fareeha… Pharah? Yeah fuck it, Pharah’s a grand fit.”

She rolled her eyes. What a dumb name. “Whatever you say, Tracy.”

“Tracer! It’s _Tracer_ you numpty!” the Brit squawked in faux-indignation before an earnest grin split her face again. Her level of playfulness was strange, considering she was supposed to be from the same organisation that a hallowed dynasty of spy films tied themselves into. Still, the pilot supposed she’d prefer this rather than an insufferable womanising man with a host of complexes parroting some garbage about ‘shaken not stirred’ or whatever his little catchphrase was.

“Alright, alright, let’s not fight before we’re meant to handle explosives here,” Winston stepped in, offering Fareeha a miniscule looking Bluetooth headset that vanished under her curtain of black hair “I’ll be listening in; try to make yourselves as low-key as possible.”

“Don’t you get a codename?”

“While sometimes I call’m ‘Churchill’ for the laugh… who the fuck goes by Winston in this day and age?” Lena chuckled, elbowing her colleague in his extremely broad and burly shoulder. Much to Fareeha’s surprise he seemed to agree completely with a sagely nod.

“Exactly, so you may call me by name, should you require it. I’ll try to be active support if anything happens, but let’s try to avoid me needing to resort to it. In the meanwhile, I’ll be getting a feed of info from our other agents in case they discover anything relevant to the task at hand.”

“That’s fair. What’s the plan?”

“So there’s a smaller warehouse we’re close to, full of resources for construction and heavy duty roadworks. It’s quiet enough and we’ve planted a small truck there that blends in with the others dotted about. Lena’s got the keys; you’re going to park near the entrance of the old car scrapyard that they’ve taken hold of and look for oil tanks. They’re big, red and pretty hard to miss amid all the white, grey and brown. We’re blowing up whatever they’ve got stored in there. You plant them, Lena arms them, I’ll detonate them. Of course, I’ll detonate them once I see you two in person. You won’t be collateral here.”

He let out a gruff chuckle, but it was hard for Fareeha to find it terribly funny. Lena slammed her hand into her back, somehow finding the precise point that emptied her lungs of air, forcing not a laugh but a winded sputter out of her mouth “C’mon, chin up! I’ll take care of ya pet. Let’s go get this shit done!”

* * *

She couldn’t believe how utterly the workers in this warehouse ignored them, allowing the two to saunter up so casually to their truck and pile in. Did this happen often? Lena or rather, Tracer just winked and started the engine. “Doing well Winston, no incidents to speak of yet.”

“Don’t jinx it,” he jovially replied, though Fareeha worried more in spite of it “You haven’t quite started the mission.”

“I know, I know,” she took the truck around the building along the dirt track, and laughed to herself “Oh it’s a blummin’ good thing we’re not on a proper road, I drive like I forget I’m in the bloody colonies!”

Fareeha stared. Lena frowned like she was doing her best to channel a 12 year old “What?”

“Truly a promising start to this ‘mission’,” she grumbled “I’m going to be dead before the end of this month.”

“Ahhhh _shove it_ , not under my watch love!” Tracer protested, angling the truck between the old oil rig and the water tower in the car scrapyard’s perimeter “I said I’ll keep you safe, that’s a promise. Now c’mon, blend in.”

Tracer stepped out, heavy duty goggles obscuring her eyes and a large baseball cap to hide her unique hairstyle, with ‘Pharah’ following; she was equipped with a beanie and big square shades to obscure her distinct eye tattoo—given Talon hated Ana Amari, she wasn’t going to risk exposing the most glaringly obvious sign of their relation. There were a few men of all shapes and sizes moving small boxes from vans into the few warehouses surrounding them, all paying them little heed which of course suited them just fine.

“I’m going to start helping move whatever they’re moving. You put the bombs on the tanks, I’ll come back and meet you in the middle, then you do the moving in my place and I’ll arm ‘em.” Tracer murmured, looking at the nearest white van she was to start assisting with “They’ll notice us less this way.”

“Sounds good,” Fareeha replied, quickly spotting the first of the tanks—she could make out about 5 of them, and hopefully Lena could spot her movements in time and sync up her own approach. She ambled at a steady pace over towards the target, thankful for the sedan parked near it with the open boot to mask suspicious movements. She was incredibly grateful for the layout of this area being so open; with a quick glance she spotted her next tank due a label of C4. Ducking somewhat as if to peek into the trunk, she fixed the explosives in position just off to the side of it, before casually plucking a crate from the trunk and hauling it towards the warehouse.

Tracer and Pharah passed each other without a word; Tracer mimicked her approach, returning with another crate to place in the warehouse. By the time Fareeha was approaching target number 2, she was glad for the pile of scrap obscuring the main stockpile from her destination since Winston’s voice blared in her ear out of nowhere—she was positive she had jumped a few feet.

“Intel says this is where the Vagos’ drugs in the poorer districts seem to be coming from; Talon must be strangling what’s left of them to take root in the city proper. Fascinating, but mostly worrying especially if a relatively new PMC can virtually eradicate an entrenched gang in a matter of months.”

She was going to sock him in the jaw for spooking her out of the blue, if she survived this mission.  Good to know in doing this, the pilot might actually be more of a good citizen than she previously thought, at the very least, what with clearing out places steeped in gangland activity. Her nerves were settling in as number 2 and 3 were set and armed without a hitch, and by number 4 Fareeha was oddly full of confidence as she waited for Lena to arm it, until out of seemingly nowhere… “H-Hey! What the fuck d’you think you’re doing!? Guys, we’ve got a mole!”

_Oh shit, was it her they noticed?_ The pilot turned swiftly only to see a group of men dropping the boxes they had in hand and face…away from her? That meant only one thing; they picked up on Tracer rather than her, somehow. She ran behind a stack of wooden pallets for cover, peering round only to see Lena coldly draw her gun and shoot 2 of them dead. _Better give her cover fire_ , she thought, pulling out her own weapon and taking careful aim, dismissing what empathy she had for these men that dared to bubble up from below, dropping two more of them.  Two men remained out of the initial 6, until another five appeared to reinforce them with much heavier weaponry than before: rifles, shotguns and semi-automatics, oh my!

She gritted her teeth grimly. This was going south and fast; the place was crawling with Talon’s underlings and it looked like they were after Tracer with a host of high powered firearms. Fareeha owed her and Winston both for pulling her out of the shitstorm with the Shimada, so it was time to pay them back. The bullets continued to exchange between the agent and the gang, and to her surprise another man fell to the ground unmoving. Fareeha swallowed the lump of condensed dread in her throat, marvelling at how ruthless the previously jovial and amiable imported agent became, leaning around the pallet stack and killing the straggler who dropped his rifle.

The din was too great for the dead man’s gang to notice, and summoning the genetic brass from her mother (that presumably led to Talon hating her for whatever reasons she’d hopefully find out), Fareeha rushed to the closest heap of scrap for cover and plucked up the automatic rifle. Checking the stock to see a plethora of ammo remained, she took a deep breath and began blind firing around cover, scattering the men. Winston’s voice rang in her ear, but this time it was a reassurance “Doesn’t look like any more are swarming the area, you should be on the home stretch.”

“Yeah, if Tracer doesn’t _die_ out there,” she hissed, hearing the Englishwoman yelp in pain and reacting by standing and laying down a blanket of fire.

“Shit, _two_ turncoats!” one of the men cried out, earning himself a bullet in the carotid artery with regards from Her Majesty’s finest.

“She might not look it, but she’s a tough cookie,” Winston replied thoughtfully; given her gun prowess, she was definitely inclined to agree now “Tracer’s more concerned with keeping _you_ alive, go and set the last bomb when you can.”

“Touched,” Fareeha muttered, narrowly avoiding getting peppered with SMG bullets as the scrap ate the metal in her abdomen’s stead. With a daring barrel roll she cleared the dangerous gap between her and a wall of steel pipe sufficing as her next cover, crouching and hurriedly shuffling towards the final oil tank. Just as the explosives swiftly glued themselves to the almost vermillion painted metal, one of the hostiles launched himself at her with the butt of his rifle destined for her chin. Fareeha ducked, the rifle smacked and dented the tank with a loud DING and for one moment her and the Talon lackey shared a fleeting moment of terror thinking it was about to blow.

Thankfully her muscles kicked in and reacted first, grabbing him and punching him full force in the throat before pistol whipping the back of his neck. A bullet in the head ensured he wasn’t getting back up, and the pilot sternly pilfered his rifle, swinging it by the strap around her shoulders.

“Cunts! Y’better run now before I kick ya in the bollocks so hard you’re **_gargling_** your fucking **scrotums**!”

The veracity of the British accented insult added enough edge to urge Fareeha to hurry over to Lena’s position, her wave of bullets downing the last couple of men long enough for her mission partner to finish them off with calculated aim. She staggered to her feet, scuffed and visibly bloodied up around her left shoulder and left shin, enough to inspire worry in the pilot.

“Oh, shit, Tracer are you okay?”

“Only a flesh wound, pet. I’ll survive to bother you another day,” she chirped, all surprisingly gusto as if the firefight didn’t just happen “Thanks for finishing these lads off, but we better scarper before one of their boys investigates why this place got very quiet all of a sudden.”

“R-Right, I’ll be by the truck.”

* * *

“Mission accomplished! Great job, both of you,” Winston congratulated as the duo hauled ass back into the van “Especially to you Fareeha; for a beginner you did very well.”

The vehicle began moving, and Fareeha slumped against the wall with a loud thunk, feeling the drain of adrenaline from her nerves, her muscles ungluing from fight over flight. Such movement just gave Lena leave to cackle and elbow her with her right, unbloodied, arm “Pah! I know right? I was much the same in my field training. You’ll get used to it.”

“What if I don’t particularly _want_ to?” She was in way over her head, running a slightly shaking hand through hair slick at the roots with sweat that built up during the violence; for heavens’ sake she flew celebrities around and rescued idiots who got lost in the mountains for a living, not _blowing shit up_ as Lena so lovingly described it.

“Fareeha,” Winston rumbled, looking gravely serious “Please listen to me when I say that Talon will not care. They will still be looking for you with an aim to kill simply for your pedigree alone, but in working with us we can actually extend more potent protection and lend you far more of an aegis than going day-to-day as a plain old civvie would do. This way everyone wins except Talon.”

“Alright,” she did her best to sound convinced to little avail, shortly turning to alarm as her phone screamed its ringtone with Satya’s name on its screen. She looked at Winston and Lena in turn, afraid that this was a breach of debriefing procedure, but the two were amiable about it.

“G’wan, answer it. Just no FaceTime,” Lena giggled with a knowing and deliberate wink.

“Hello?”

“ _Fareeha! Did you hear that explosion from Murrietta? We heard something in the clinic here, but didn’t know what it was until the news popped on. When I said that things are kicking up in the city, this was not what I expected it to devolve into_.”

“Uh, I heard something weird but I didn’t see shit on the news,” Lena gave Fareeha an exuberant but somehow silent double thumbs up at her. “Why? What’s up?”

“ _Other than that, nothing, but I haven’t seen you in a while so I’d like to chat. Are you around?_ ”

“Where are you at?”

“ _Tourist spotting at the usual Bean Machine branch_.”

Fareeha looked at her ‘colleagues’. Winston smiled and nodded “We’ll drop you near enough to there.”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“ _See you then!_ ”

* * *

By now the sun was beginning to descend towards the horizon, as Fareeha all but dragged herself towards the coffee shop and the ever prim and impeccably dressed Satya who stood outside. The woman made a deliberate show of her double-taking at the pilot’s state, as well as prod at apparent bits of dirt on Fareeha’s skin and pinch the edge of her clothing to inspect the scuffs. She shuffled on her feet, waiting until the surgeon finished the vain attempt to tidy her up.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I got into a fight with some crazy junkies,” was the only explanation she got.

Satya scrunched up her nose, peering at Fareeha who never changed her expression from general exhaustion, eventually deciding she wouldn’t pursue the topic. “At least let me fix you up, seeing as Angela isn’t here to do this for you, though I’m sure she’d _love_ to.”

She cringed, and only cringed harder when the surgeon noticed it, only to smirk knowingly.

“Although I think you’ve been _rather_ taken with the Vanilla Unicorn lately.”

“You must’ve heard it from my injured roommate, right?” Fareeha shot back, celebrating internally, what with being absolutely tuckered out to do anything much _externally_ , when the retort visibly bothered Satya. “Look, Angela’s too good for me. As much as I’d like to go out with her, I just don’t think it’d be fair to her.”

“Like mother like daughter,” Satya sniffed. “The lure of a gentleman’s club performer is genetic.”

Even with the revelation that an angry mercenary company hated her mother’s guts, Fareeha was still pretty sure she was most annoyed about Ana’s goddamn stripper story everyone she knew heard from her, but only just. Tiredness kicked in and the pilot wobbled on her feet, teetering dangerously, enough for her friend to drop the whole vitriolic buddy act and move as if to catch her in case she crumpled into a heap.

“Maybe you should go rest,” Satya muttered, grabbing Fareeha’s shoulders and struggling somewhat to push her dead weight back onto her feet.

“Maybe I should. It’s far more productive than listening to you go on and on.”

“It’s not like my voice is _boring_ , you know!”

Fareeha willed what energy she had left to her muscles, standing unaided with the tiniest of smirks “I’m sure Hana’d agree. I’ll ask her when I get home about that.”

Satya’s eyes rolled so hard into the back of her head the pilot swore they were only short of rolling out of their sockets. “When I said I like to be the topic of conversation, that’s not what I had in mind. Go home and sleep off that encounter.”

“Wayyy ahead of you. I’d rather not sleep face first in the gutter.”

* * *

“Hey eomma, I didn’t realise you’d be out all d-whoa holy shit you look like flaming garbage.”

“ _Thanks_ , Hana.” Fareeha grimaced and stumbled in as the gamer shuffled quickly out of the doorframe and out of her way. “Got jumped by some guys.”

“Did you waste ‘em? I mean, I don’t see major wounds or bleeding or anything, so… I’m gonna just assume you fucked ‘em up real nice!” Hana’s exuberance, even though it was toned down than her full-on streaming persona, was still verging on too much for the exhausted Egyptian. Perhaps she’d have to ask about the Satya thing some other time. “Oh man speaking of which, halmeoni was over checking in on me while you were gone, and we were watching TV—there was a huge fuckin’ explosion in Murrietta near the oil fields. Could hear it from La Puerta, I think it was visible even in Strawberry too. Shit’s craaaazy—oh _shit_!”

While the student rambled on, she took a while to notice that the pilot’s legs were beginning to buckle under her own weight, but thankfully got there in time to prevent Fareeha getting suddenly very acquainted with the floor. Throwing her arm over her slim shoulders, Hana braced the much heavier woman to the best of her ability, shuffling towards her room “I gotcha eomma! Anyways, halmeoni laughs and says that the Vagos ate shit with the thing going ‘splode cos that was one of their major cover operations or something? She was telling me about them being posers that learned to be afraid of her so they’d run and stuff if they saw her eye tattoo which is super cool and—.”

“Yes, yes that’s great but _yallah_ I need to **_sleep_**.” Fareeha winced, feeling her entire body angrily protest being kept vertical this long after all that awful excitement, and tried to stumble faster towards her bedroom to urge Hana to hurry up.

“Alright sunshine, lemme get you all nice and tucked in,” the gamer replied with a deliberately childish sing-song lilt to her voice, lowering the pilot down onto the Spartan looking mattress “Tomorrow I’m gonna be busy; there’s an event on for my e-sports team and there’s gonna be a bunch of suits and other dudes from companies there and we’re gonna get some sweet new deals and--.”

Hana continued to rabbit on and on about this upcoming occasion with building excitement, until she realised that quiet noise in the room was Fareeha’s very gentle snore. She smiled, carefully tucking her in before sneaking back into her room, willing her excitement to only kick in once there was enough distance and doors closed between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please correct me if I'm using any foreign words incorrectly!


	11. Adrenaline Rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana can't catch a break; Fareeha pays a visit to Gentry Lane.

Fareeha woke with all the speed and urgency of a sloth, grunting in annoyance at the sunlight that blared more light and heat than she’d like into her room. The dream was about none other than her somewhat consuming obsession on her mind, of course, not at all helped by the gruelling day that snowballed into doing legwork for _the fucking IAA_ , after meeting Reinhardt for some catch up. Tangled in her sheets, she rolled onto her front eventually and slammed her hand repeatedly on the bedside locker until eventually her palm got stingingly acquainted with the clock, turning it to face her bleary eyes. It read 12pm on the dot. She tried hard to ignore the sound of family friend McCree bleating his favourite synonym for the hour around her mind.

While wondering vaguely about his whereabouts and if he was still wearing that goddamn cowboy hat, she gathered the reluctant wherewithal to pull herself upright and look around the house; it was a little too quiet now that the pilot had adjusted to sharing it with Hana, and sure enough a note on the kitchen counter sat there with an explanation. Plucking it up towards her squinted eyes, still adjusting to being active with traces of sleep in the corners, Fareeha admired the little smirking bunny sticker in the corner. Was this her official stationary or something? It was neat.

_-Hey_ _엄마_ _,_  
sorry about last night I hope I didn’t get into shit by putting you to bed w/o you askin.  
im away at the event!!! Our pro team is meeting some competitors just 2 see if they can offer better deals so im going w/em to see whats up. Can I msg u or call u if there’s an emergency?? Not that there should be but just in case cos this city’s kinda crazy u know??? Lololol altho we’re gonna be on a big boat near del perro so if it sinks I’ll text u where 2 meet me after I swim home

_Love, D.Va!  
(its hana tho to u obv)_

A big boat? Was she on some kind of yacht? What a strange place for a gaming event. Fareeha frowned at the note, folding it and keeping it in her pocket; she’d be keeping an eye on it even if she was reasonably positive that Hana was going to be fine.

* * *

Hana was anything but fine.

She stood on the deck of the ship, awash with open bars (that none of them could drink at just yet but were told to) and lurid neon posters and banners emblazoned with the names of alternate ‘gamer fuel’ brands, close to her on-off e-sports teammates who all huddled together out of fear of their marketing executives aboard. Something had seemed very off when those brand ambassadors got very insistent on them squeezing into such small swimsuits and see-through sarongs, more so when there wasn’t much in the way of actual sponsor chat, confirmed when she had been cornered alone by one of the men supposedly in charge trying to feel her up. Thank fuck she was wiry and small and the motherfucker was built like he subsisted entirely on lard, so she was able to wriggle away out of his clammy grasp before he could grab her. When Hana grouped up with her team again, the other girls corroborated her concerns with their own similar stories though some weren’t as successful in their escapes. The outlook was grim.

“Hana-si, what do we do? Call the crew? Surely they don’t condone this--.”

The gamer and apparently defacto leader now of this team slowly breathed in and out, feeling the tingly, awful haze of panic around her person and trying to will it away, mustering the focus she needed to plan something, to get into her D.Va mode of always having a backup plan “If you ask me, they must’ve been bought off. This is Los Santos, guys; leave your niceties at the San Andreas border.”

“What do we do?!”

“Let’s all stick together here, okay? For some reason none of them are smart enough to realise they’re bigger and more numerous. If we’re getting help it won’t be from the boat.” Hana plucked out her phone, wondering if the authorities were any good, but… shit, they let her down pretty big time back at the gas station after all. There was only one person she could trust to bail her out, not that she really wanted to lean on Fareeha for everything, but she’ll pay her back big for it somehow, she swore on it.

“Are you calling the cops?”

She snorted as she texted away “You kidding me? Their response times are worse than dial-up connections.”

“I don’t even know what that’s like!”

“Course you don’t, you’re a fuckin’ foetus compared to me—be glad you never even tasted dial-up’s misery,” Hana replied, mimicking the ancient noise that for a time was the call of the internet as she sent Fareeha a text, or three that all said the same thing. [Pls help holy shit these guys are creeps, del perro pier, only yacht nearby]

“Man, how are you so calm about this?” one of her friends whined, glancing nervously at the men who skulked around with their drinks, talking among one another while making unsubtle looks at the girls “I think they’re going to team up next time.”

Hana’s phone vibrated twice, and with a shaky hand that almost catapulted the fucking thing into the Pacific, she managed to just about pull it out to read: [On it.]

“Let’s try buy time, we’re gonna be okay.”

“How do you know? Did you text the FIB or something?”

“Nah, my guardian. She’s better than them,” she responded with a rather confident smirk, looking over to the group of men and calling over “Hey studs, let me just take in the sights and I’ll be right there in your cabins! Gimme 20 minutes!”

Her team lapsed into a mess of “Are you serious?!”, “Holy shit!” and “Gross! Hana-si, don’t do it! I don’t think they _wash_!” but it was more than enough to encourage the gang of predators to back off somewhat. More than enough time, she hoped, looking over the barrier towards the city and the pier which wasn’t too far off. Goddamn she _really_ hoped. Some of her teammates joined in to what they assumed was Hana reflecting on this awful situation they managed to get into, when after a few minutes, one of them caught sight of something in the water.

“Huh. Do people normally jump off the pier to swim?”

“Hey, it looks like they’re getting closer. Wait, are they swimming towards _us_!?”

Hana narrowed her eyes to try and grasp a more defined shape of the swimmer, glimpsing black hair, dark skin and…that fucking copypasta wardrobe. What Hana couldn’t spot was the untold level of fury in the newcomer’s face, angrily powering through the water towards the boat. Shit, she didn’t realise her host mom could swim so fucking _fast_.

Fareeha found the ladder to get aboard, taking full advantage of it and instantly knocking out an oncoming security guard with a right hook that was going to bruise her hand for days. She pilfered a baton from his unconscious grasp while shaking her right hand out, just in time to clobber the next man running full pelt at her right in the jaw and off of the ship. The door, which the first man stood in front of, was opened only to spot a terrified crewman waving his hands at her like he had no part of the attempted debauchery going on higher up.

“H-Hey, the guys are just renting our ship out okay!? We’re not doing anything to those girls, promise!”

She stared at him, huffing through her nose like a bull contemplating a merciless gore “I bet you got some extra cash to look the other fucking way though. Be glad I don’t have time to hurt you for _complicity_.” No time to tell him that the IAA were pulling favours back on land, mustering the police’s coast guard to get moving and ignore whatever Fareeha was doing, so he might get arrested anyway.

Running out of there (noting idle jetskis to the right tethered to the ship for later), turning left around the corner and up the flight of stairs, she ran into one of the ‘brand ambassadors’ who barely had time to ask ‘who are you’ before he was missing his front teeth and unable to see out of his eyes, draped over the bannister. Distantly the girls were hearing part of the commotion, looking at Hana with terror like she had summoned something worse aboard. Meanwhile, the pilot managed to get up one more flight of stairs unabated, until a gaggle of executives caught sight and pursued, right onto the deck where more of them waited. The girls shrieked, clinging to each other and shrinking away, all except Hana who watched the standoff and hoped there was some way she could get a hit in on these jerks without paying dearly.

Fareeha moved slowly, the encirclement followed, until she hit the edge of a wooden bar stand awash with glasses full and empty, with bottles still stocked up just behind the front of it. The men chuckled ominously, thinking this was going to be quick. A few started forward, only to be concussed by the force of glass pitchers shattering on their skulls. More followed, angrier, to receive glasses and cheap Piβwasser beer raining on their heads; the action only stunned and annoyed them but it was Fareeha’s ruthless baton swinging into their temples that made them join their other friends on the floor. Some of the girls started cheering her on.

The last part of the crowd was the largest wave, and their strategy was different enough in that they all rushed her at once, forcing the pilot to resort to swinging the baton like a sword but enough piled in that she was reduced to frantic struggling. They were starting to outnumber her and make awfully effective use of it, beginning to pin her down, until out of the blue; Hana picked up two huge bottles of champagne still left idle behind another bar stand and went to town smashing them over two of the burliest heads there, ignoring the pain that her ribs still protested furiously with. The distraction was enough to scatter the men from the pilot but round on the gamer instead; luckily not much came of it bar a grab to the arms before Fareeha went into overdrive with a frightening roar and began mowing them down with a combination of slamming her foot into the back of their knees to buckle them and the baton to send them reeling to the floor. Eventually it was only the two of them standing amid a pile of groaning and unconscious creeps, when thankful applause from D.Va’s team filled the air, joined by the approach of police sirens.

“Holy crap Hana, you weren’t kidding! She’s so cool!”

Striking a pose, she beamed and threw her arm around Fareeha’s broad shoulders “Didn’t I tell you guys? My host mom’s the best--.”

She didn’t have time to elaborate, as the pilot grabbed her by the wrist and began dragging her down the stairs towards the jetskis “Sorry, we’re leaving. The cops will be here soon to take care of these assholes. Stay safe.”

Confused but letting Fareeha take the lead, Hana followed her down to watch her hop aboard a jetski with navy and sky blue designs, beckoning her to follow with urgency. She glanced back, wondering about the rest of her team when the pilot growled “They’ll be fine. The police have their speedboats coming this way, see? Let’s _go_.”

With nothing left to really contest, the Korean hopped on behind her, wrapping her arms around Fareeha’s tensed stomach and holding on for dear life as she kicked the thing into full acceleration back towards the coast. The two passed by the few boats screaming with sirens without any incident to Hana’s immense confusion, until only the lapping of waves against the jet ski could be heard.

“Ha, man, that was really scary back there. I’m sorry you had to bail me out. Again,” she said, now feeling a little bad for continually roping her in, as the nervous energy began to fade from her mind.

“Don’t worry about it. You helped this time anyway, remember?”

“You literally swam all the way to the boat and _then_ started wailing on those fuckos. All that friggin’ legwork, I only had a bit part in the asskicking!”

“You still helped, and at a crucial moment,” Fareeha replied, gently insistent as the jetski met sand and chugged to a stop. She waited for Hana to move off of it, and the two walked up the wooden steps of Del Perro Pier and towards the grey streets once more, where the trusty blue Obey Tailgater stood parked just beside the sign.

“I’ll drop you home, alright? I can’t imagine that episode did your ribs any good.”

“Huh? I mean, yeah they still kinda hurt but, where’re you going?”

The glowering silence that the Egyptian answered with spoke volumes, enough for the gamer to guess with a wide-eyed look that turned into a knowing grin “…Ohhhh, oho right! You’re going to the Unicorn again and getting with Mercy, am I right?”

Fareeha’s tightly lipped and extremely brief nod confirmed it. Hana chuckled, elbowing her playfully “Hey c’mon, if you’re gonna fuck her after an adrenaline rush, at least let me put in a bootycall with your hot surgeon friend. Wingman a little here, will ya?”

She stared “…so _now_ you’re okay with me and sex in the same sentence? You acted grossed out before.”

The gamer held up her hands and rolled her eyes “Look, it’s like—well, you’re basically my cool mom here. D’you really wanna hear about your mom talk about fucking people? Uh, I mean, blonde stripper girl asides—.”

Fareeha shut her eyes tightly and grimaced as she opened the car door; _of course_ Ana told her the fucking story as well. “Okay, okay! I get it, what do you want?”

“You heard me,” Hana smirked; the level of confidence, faked or otherwise, enough to push the pilot backwards were they not both getting into a car at that point. At least, if anything, the mention of it to Satya would be probably enough to stop her teasing Fareeha, so to that end she’d let her know about it—it’d keep her off her own back.

The Egyptian woman plucked out her phone from the glove compartment and passed the message on: [lol hana wants to bootycall u]. She started the engine and began driving homeward bound “No guarantees anything will happen. At most she’ll probably check up on your ribs.”

“Hey, _any_ kind of attention from her is a-okay with me!”

“Suit yourself.”

By the time Hana was safely back at the house in Richman, Fareeha’s phone buzzed with the reply of [hahaha ok]. Not that she saw, she was already driving a little faster than usual to the Unicorn, praying Mercy was there to answer her.

* * *

Unfortunately there was no Mercy; there was Zarya presumably off duty with Mei for whatever reason Fareeha didn’t have time to speculate other than noticing the bounder’s massive arm around the giggly climatologist. Sapphire approached her before she could walk back out, delaying her for _something_ , humming and hawing until she looked at her phone and chuckled something about house calls. Fareeha was already halfway out of the door on that prompt, her directional senses pointing her to that house in Gentry Lane like she was on a mission.

Traffic had to contend with an adamant blue Obey Tailgater driving north like a knife slicing through the air, narrowly avoiding impact but still causing accidents in its wake. Not that the pilot cared, leaving her car in its haphazard parking state half-blocking the road, standing outside the door and breathing heavily at the promise of Mercy gracing her behind it.

She knocked.

“Who is it?” the voice answered, curiously kinder and lighter in tone to what she was expecting. It sounded familiar, but given her mindset Fareeha was in no mood to actually think that much on the subject.

“Fareeha,” she replied haggardly, swallowing in a bid to make her throat feel less dry. Shuffling was heard, until the heavy door opened to reveal the ever gorgeous Mercy wearing lingerie and a big smile.

“Shall we?”

“Last door on my right, yeah?”

Her smile grew wider, draping her arms over Fareeha’s shoulder “You remembered.”

With purpose, Fareeha picked her up and carried her through the frame-decorated hall, kissing her at every opportunity (she had no time to notice much detail with her lusty tunnel vision on her previous visit, but it looked like no photos were hung up, but something else—like diplomas), glad that the door to paradise was already ajar to begin with. Mercy fisted the light switch while still in her arms and was dropped onto the bed and instantly pinned with the same urgency. She looked up, making eye contact with brown eyes dilated with lust but gilded by the light, and then she glanced about the rest of the Egyptian’s tightly coiled and still very much frustratingly clothed body. Mercy slyly traced a finger down from Fareeha’s left shoulder, down her tensed flank and over her abdominals, accompanied by an admiring gaze and a wry smirk. “Like a lioness cornering her prey, though _this_ particular prey _hopes_ you use your teeth and your claws.”

“That can be arranged,” Fareeha rumbled, sitting up and straddling Mercy as she quickly divested herself of tanktop and bra alike, returning to her pinned ‘prey’ to do away with what fabric was left on Mercy’s own top half. As the dancer glanced to watch descent of her lingerie to the floor, she felt teeth first on the crook of her neck and shoulder, and the sensation of warm, foreign but very welcome skin on hers as Fareeha closed the gap between their bodies once more.

Long fingers wound through loose hair and tugged enough to coax the pilot into rearing back and looking into magenta-coloured eyes—definitely contact lenses—before Mercy pulled her back in and aggressively kissed her again. Fareeha moved upwards, body held agonisingly separate from the stripper until she realised those were her hands deftly unfastening her jeans. She glanced to the bedside locker as she kicked them off “Are we gonna need any of those--?”

“No,” Mercy breathed, gasping when Fareeha’s thigh found the crux of her legs and grinded steadily “You and me, nothing else.”

Sounds good, was what the pilot wanted to say, but her mind went vacant at the sight of her obsession reacting so; her body went on automatic and began worshipping her with languid kisses trailing a leisurely line down Mercy’s body. There was the hint of teeth, but as Mercy had insisted with an airy laugh, she couldn’t give her lovebites for the sake of the job what with such marks being quite visible in the Vanilla Unicorn’s lighting. (The customers wouldn’t be pleased that the unattainable became even more out of their reach, after all.)

“Fareeha?”

“Mm,” was the answer from around her pelvic area.

“Will you stay the night this time?”

“Yes,” she answered, very quickly “Absolutely.”

“Then go ahead,” Mercy chuckled breathlessly, running her hands through inky black hair “Bite down a little.”

If there was something Fareeha was good at, it was taking orders. The inside of Mercy’s thigh now bore a couple of red marks, and then she daringly pulled the lace underwear off with her teeth and kissed deeply where it had been before. Legs squeezed her shoulders as she went to town with her tongue, tracing her name as if that’d serve as the same kind of brand her bites would but more so to eke out more delightful cries out of Mercy’s mouth. The pilot continued, until she heard the change of pitch into helpless whining as well as feeling the pointedly rhythmic roll of hips against her face, opting to cut that short to the sound of a frustrated huff.

“Hey now,” Fareeha tut-tutted with a wry smirk as she moved up to be face-to-face “That’s just the starter.”

“ _Tease_.”

“You had me in cuffs last time,” she settled her hand between Mercy’s legs, adjusting to being the one with on top for a change “I think this is pretty fair.”

It was to be a minor battle to remain so, judging by how fiercely the stripper lavished attention on her—hands pawing at Fareeha’s chest, nails dragging along her abdominals tensing below the surface of her skin, most of all Mercy’s thigh that adamantly mimicked her earlier movement now between the pilot’s legs instead—but Fareeha held as resolute as she could above her. Despite only having precious few encounters with one another, the two quickly found a good pace, though Mercy was catching up to where Fareeha was and giving just as good as she was getting.

She lowered her head, brushing her lips along the edge of Mercy’s mouth, ajar with pleas for more matched with the undulation of her body into Fareeha’s diligent hand. There was something different about this meeting; _something_ in the air was different, but as to what she’d have to review that when far removed from this situation. Their relationship was entirely founded on wanton lust but now there was a budding connection promising a level beyond the physicality, which might’ve been weird in any other city for a pilot to hook up with a stripper, but Los Santos was a special kind of city.

Introspection didn’t last too long, when Mercy seized her chest and the element of surprise, flipping Fareeha onto her back with a surprised yelp. The dancer positioned her hips carefully against hers; angling her body backwards just enough to find that sweet spot, potent enough to make the pilot hiss and close her eyes. Fareeha heard a breathy laugh answer the noise she made, but before she could try to meet that with her own generous movements, she felt a hand lightly tap her knee a few times.

“Ah, ah; let me look after _you_.”

“You’re just full of surprises,” Fareeha sighed, acquiescing and allowing Mercy to take the lead, putting her extremely flexible body to good use as their hips rolled together in sync gradually. She could feel something coiling up like a spring beneath her gut, as Mercy gleefully grinded against her, somehow finding just where to hit pitch perfectly, but just as the sensations built their positions changed anew. Now the stripper was lying atop of her, face-to-face with their legs entangled and brimming with a bright but curiously sincere smile, one that turned impish as she watched Fareeha gasp loudly at the sly hand that slipped between them.

She attempted to voice protest, wanting to insist on satiating Mercy first before anything was to come her way, but anything that came out of her mouth was a garbled mess of Arabic and English as talented fingers played her wonderfully as she arched back into the bed. Fareeha was oh so close, strong hands grabbing Mercy’s hips as her body automatically responded to every heavy touch, and the dancer would’ve taken the opportunity to smirk had her lover not managed to push her down, coaxing her to move against her thigh.

Through the haze of pleasure and on the verge of the peak, Fareeha took the view of slack-jawed Mercy with half-lidded magenta eyes as a little victory, before giving in and letting instinct take over. It was briefly lived; her body gave in first, the tingling sensation washing over her body from her overwhelmed mind to her extremities, unable to hold out against such lasciviousness as she growled out the name of her heavenly tormentor. In her throes, she could feel Mercy’s body freeze up against hers as she added in a long, keen cry of Fareeha’s name ( ~~which she committed to her innermost memory for how _incredible_ it sounded~~ ), and the two collapsed into a boneless pile, sated and slick with sweat.

Silence persisted for a minute as they gathered themselves, with Mercy being the first to move meaningfully beyond the rise and fall of her chest. She propped herself up on an elbow, gazing at Fareeha getting her breath back with the kind of look that went beyond mere lust; the pilot wasn’t in the right mindset to try decode it now, instead simply taking it in passively with a satisfied smile as her eyes fluttered closed for a moment.

“Let me know when you’re good for round 2, gorgeous.”

Fareeha’s eyes flared open. How the hell was she going to be ready for another? “Round 2?”

“You heard me—I mean, we’ve got the whole night now, no?”

A moment passed, before the meek look in the pilot’s face steadily changed to one of confidence “True. Just give me 5 and I’ll be good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fareeha's going to find out something next chapter :V


	12. Two Sides, Same Coin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fareeha realises the truth, Satya finds herself on the other end of the gossip for once.

Daylight beamed through on Fareeha’s face at an angle she wasn’t expecting, stirring her reluctantly from the soundest sleep she’s had in… well, a very long time. Considering she wasn’t actually at home and rather in the fine company of Mercy’s own, she didn’t let the sun’s wakeup call bother her too much. She swung her arm over to her right, finding the edge of the bed, and then to the left, where she found more sheets and pillows; it seemed her bed friend had been up and about for a while, judging by the lack of heat in the other side. Maybe it was time to get up.

With a cavernous yawn, the pilot steadily sat up and stretched her arms out, hearing a couple of pops in her body. Her clothes were folded neatly and perched on the window ledge rather than remaining scattered across the floor where she faintly remembered leaving them the night before. Sliding out of the sheets and onto her feet, Fareeha ambled over and sluggishly dressed, contented. Her attention was drawn by the sound of movement elsewhere in the house, which she drew closer to and assuming it was Mercy probably getting breakfast or something, she readied a smug ‘good morning’.

Just as she rounded the corner of the door frame into the kitchen, that greeting went from on the tip of her tongue to becoming firmly lodged back down her neck as she was met with no Mercy, but Angela Ziegler instead. The early afternoon sun peered through the window she stood in front of, catching her messy, drying blonde hair with golden light like a halo; even despite the baggy t-shirt over her small shorts and the towel sitting on her shoulders (with traces of black on it?), she still managed to carry a divine, calming presence. Well, calming in any other instance, but Fareeha just woke up here after fucking a stripper and the last person who should see her ‘walk of shame’ (not that she’d call it shameful) was in the same house.

It really didn’t help that Angela’s first reaction to seeing Fareeha was break out into a kind smile that reached her eyes, which certainly made that previous shame come back into the equation. She glanced downwards, away from the doctor’s sincere look, trying to find something to say that didn’t immediately tank Angela’s opinion of her for what she did.

“How are you this morning, Fareeha?”

“I… uh, um…” She gulped, wide-eyed and running a hand through her hair “You knew I was staying here?”

“Of course; why wouldn’t I?”

_Shit_. She didn’t recall Angela telling her about any other family members other than her late parents, but maybe she didn’t want to mention any close relatives who happened to be strippers…? There was only one way to find out, of course. “You… you don’t have any sisters, do you?”

“Only child,” Angela replied, starting to look very amused as she folded her arms loosely, leaning against the kitchen counter. _No siblings? But then, how…_

“But, if that’s the case, who— _who’s_ Mercy?”

“Ah, you see…” The doctor chuckled, smiling slightly, before gesturing to herself sheepishly and holding up the corner of the towel with black dye on it pointedly “That’d be me. It’s how I got money for my degrees and diplomas, got out of medical school without much debt if any, and… well, it helps pay the bills these days.”

Angela might’ve added some more after that, but Fareeha didn’t hear it, since her legs buckled from underneath her and her eyes rolled back into her head as the world turned black momentarily.

“Fareeha, _Fareeha_! Are you okay?”

She blinked slowly, shutting her eyes tightly as she willed the blurry colours to form proper vision once more. She was lying down, her head cradled in Angela’s arms as the doctor fanned her face with a rolled up newspaper, her wobbly legs propped up against the counter—shit, that’s right; she had fainted after discovering the truth behind ‘the strange case of Dr Ziegler and Mrs Mercy’.

“I’m fine as I can be. Not every day you find out that enchanting stripper is also that perfect doctor you thought was out of your league,” she replied, moving as if to get up, managing to knock over a bottle of water placed right beside her—thankfully plastic and still closed over so no spill, but a clumsy move nonetheless.

“Hey, no sudden movements; take a second to get your bearings. That was kind of scary seeing you drop so quickly,” Angela said, squeezing Fareeha’s toned shoulder for emphasis “I barely managed to catch you before you smacked your head off of something. I’m only slight and you’re pretty, well, buff.”

“Oh my god,” Fareeha whined, covering her face as it turned a hearty red.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I—I’ve slept with you twice now, after dating you once! Fuck me, how did I not put this shit together?!”

“While you’re not the only one to wonder how you didn’t deduce so sooner,” Angela began, allowed Fareeha to get a ‘fucking Satya!’ exclamation in the middle of her sentence, her tone became remorseful and her head was inclined away “I never meant to fool around with you like that, never telling you I was Mercy as well. If you don’t want anything to do with me for duping you like that, I’d understand. I’ll just need to prepare a wordy letter to Satya Vaswani for thinking this was a good idea to play along to.”

“Better than my idea which was just putting a fist into her face,” Fareeha grumbled, when the rest of the doctor’s words sunk in her countenance softened and she shook her head as much as she could from where she lay “No—don’t, look it’s _okay_ ; this is totally cool, I mean, I’m absolutely into both aspects of you. You know that, right?”

“Really?” Angela replied, an eyebrow rising upwards as she looked at her out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t seem convinced.

 “ _Really_. After all that’s happened, as well as me being drawn to both kind, caring Angela and lusty livewire Mercy, what kind of idiot would I be to turn you down knowing you’re both?” Fareeha sat up with a broad grin, taking her legs down and crossing them loosely, moving so that she made eye contact in full “I know I can be as dense as some of the Rockford Hills trophy wives but I’m not that wilfully stupid either.”

The two giggled, letting an amiable silence drift in as they looked carefully for the next words. Angela’s smile became tender, almost shy somehow in spite of the fact she had already been extremely intimate with Fareeha the night before (and the other time--), glancing between her and the varnished floor “So… does that mean we’re going out--.”

The doorbell rang loudly, cutting through the blonde’s meek question and making her growl in annoyance. Fareeha watched her stand and walk out into the hall, grumbling in what was ostensibly Swiss German the whole way over ( ~~endearing, but that was neither here nor there~~ ), joined shortly by the sound of the heavy door being yanked open and Angela almost yelling “ _Are you **serious**_!?”

By the time the pilot reached the hall herself she heard a familiar, lightly accented “That’s no way to greet a friend,” and walked faster to the door, glaring at a very smug Satya dressed in light, casual clothes who only grinned harder seeing Fareeha beside Angela.

“You,” Angela muttered; the dark tone to her voice the only giveaway that she was restraining a very angry stream of words “Are _so lucky_ this turned out as well as you said.”

“But it did, so I don’t understand why you’re both glaring at me.”

“ _Get in here_ , I’m not yelling at you in the middle of the street.”

“Alright,” Satya simply answered with a carefree shrug of her shoulders as the couple moved out of her casual stroll indoors “I’m happy that you two are _finally_ that wonderful couple I always said you’d be.”

The Egyptian’s voice was raised before she could even stop herself “Why the **_fuck_** did you not tell me anything about Angela being Mercy?”

“This whole rigmarole probably could’ve been avoided if you did,” Angela herself sighed behind a scowling Fareeha, closing the door behind Satya.

“I’m genuinely unsure if dear Fareeha would’ve actually believed me, even if I did.” The Indian woman remained completely unfazed, still sporting an infuriatingly haughty look “What does it matter? I can consider you both dating, no?”

“Okay, while yes that’s true—probably—it’s just—,” Fareeha stumbled over her words, frustrated, throwing her hands upward as Angela peered curiously at Satya “Oh forget it. You are the _worst_ sometimes, holy shit.”

“Satya?”

“Yes, Angela? Your turn to shout at me, is it?”

The doctor shook her head, moving towards the surgeon, frowning at a few spots on her as she immediately got _very_ self-conscious and began to curl inwards away from her. Fareeha watched, the earlier aggravation evaporating away and leaving her bemused and intrigued at Satya being put on the back foot for a welcome change. Angela stroked her chin, squinting and humming “No, no, I’m not angry at you. Just… that top you’re wearing isn’t an off-shoulder one—I’ve seen you wear this before as just a sort of general low-cut one, so I’m wondering why you’re wearing it like that.”

“Ah, uh, well…”

Fareeha tilted her head at the scene, _very_ interested as Satya immediately fixed the top to match Angela’s description, almost too quickly “You’re blushing.”

“You see, I was out last night.”

“Oh!” the pilot blinked, remembering that she sent her a message the night before—not that she evidently thought it would contribute to the conversation—fishing out the phone from where she could feel it sitting awkwardly in her pocket “You probably didn’t see my text then, but Hana was asking for you.”

“Who’s Hana?” Angela asked, suddenly beaming like she was on the trail of something gold, glancing between Fareeha and an increasingly flustered looking Satya.

“Yes, I saw the text; that’s the one I responded to,” said the surgeon tersely; moving hair behind her ears and trying to fix any perceived issues in her appearance “I was over at your house last night.”

“ _Who’s Hana!_ Oh my god,” the blonde persisted giddily “Someone _tell_ me!”

“My roommate,” Fareeha answered, staring at Satya in disbelief as she opened up the text exchange and read the answer the Indian gave some 14 hours ago “I thought you just went to check on her or something. Her ribs were still acting up, right?”

For the first time in their vitriolic friendship that she could remember, her previously confident and annoyingly smug medical buddy didn’t have a sassy remark to make. It spoke more than enough volumes to blast through the traditional 5 metre-thick dense wall around Fareeha’s social intuition, and made her immediately jump to the most interesting conclusion.

“Don’t tell me you two--.”

Satya let out a sigh like she had been holding her breath, oddly relieved as if she was happy Fareeha managed to try and guess the situation for a change—and accurately on top of it.

“Yes, well, we found ways around that mild injury.”

Scandalised, the pilot dropped her phone, luckily for the device it found itself in Angela’s hands rather than shattering on the floor as she read the brief conversation and began cackling “Ohhhh my god! Fareeha, you _have_ to tell me all about Hana, please! I need to know what to relate back to Mei--!”

The Indian woman’s entire countenance changed as her voice became extremely ominous “ **You are not telling _Mei_**.”

“ _Chill out_ , she’d be happy that you were not only right about us but you had your own fun,” the Swiss woman chuckled, casually locking the pilot’s phone and sliding it into her back pocket “If it was just a fling, I don’t know why you’re all tense about it.”

The two medical staff bantered back and forth as they went into the kitchen, joined eventually by Fareeha when she mustered enough cognitive ability to move, after that revelation that proved a little too much after a day full of them.

* * *

Vespucci Beach unfurled almost as far as her eye could see, hemmed by the brilliant blue of the Pacific Ocean and to the distant right by Del Perro Pier. Seagulls cawed, gossips chattered, the Muscle Beach fanatics grunted as they worked out in their outdoor gym; the hustle and bustle wasn’t manic as it would be in Pillbox Hill at the heart of the business districts, but more a surprisingly ambient soundtrack in its own right. Ana smiled, taking a sip of lovingly prepared coffee as she leaned over the balcony and took in the sights, sounds and smells, pretending to ignore the interesting one that waved up from outside of ‘Smoke on the Water’ close by. This apartment was the ideal retiring home for her; while it put her amid the blank brained masses with bleached hair and silicon chests that view and this atmosphere was more than worth it. All she needed to do now was convince Reinhardt to move here and the picture would essentially be complete--.

Brrrrrrrrrrrring! The noise was echoed shortly by Jamison, who hobbled over and handed her the ringing phone “No contact deets, but y’might know who it is.”

“Thank you Jamison--.”

“Oh please, call me Junkrat, nan!”

“Junkrat,” Ana repeated, rolling her eye “Thank you. Hellllllllo?”

“ _This is Ana Amari, right?_ ” That was not a voice she recognised, gravelly like the man washed his mouth with the leftovers from a quarry, and from an unknown number no less. Her body coiled, instinctively reacting to a fight, as she furiously tried to think who the hell could have this number.

“Who is this? How do you know my name?”

“ _Through your daughter, Fareeha, since we needed to contact you about something very important_.”

“I don’t want what you’re selling, if that’s what this is about.”

“ _It’s about Merryweather_.”

“ **Fuck off** ,” Ana hissed, dangerously on edge as she turned around and headed inside.

“ _I know, I know, I’m not too thrilled about being on this case either. My name’s Winston, I’m from the IAA and I’m calling you to warn you about Talon. Fareeha’s been on the wrong end of the Shimada and she’ll be getting the same negative attention from Talon if they know who she is—you have to know Reyes isn’t dead_.”

“He’s as dead as Jack, Reinhardt and myself,” Ana scoffed; despite her response and the fact even Jack had mused on the possibility for years since that fateful fight in North Yankton, the confirmation still found a way to chill her blood. Even so, there was something more important to her than Gabriel Reyes continuing to live in spite of his blood spilled all over Jack Morrison’s hands “I know that already. Who do you think you are, trying to rope my little girl into your government nonsense?! I’ve worked all my life to keep her as far away from this bullshit as much as possible. If you’re a damn agent, you _know_ why Merryweather went down and it wasn’t because of clashing egos!”

“ _Ms Amari, please, given how Talon have subdued the Vagos as well as attempt to settle into East Los Santos and how you haven’t exactly kept very low key, they might have taken notice of your joyride with Mr Wilhelm’s boat and a dozen Shimada trailing you. We stopped the Shimada attacking Fareeha, and asked her to assist us in removing Talon’s warehouse from Murrietta—we would have done this alone but we’re trying to protect you both from Talon by masking your trail with ours_.”

“What’s your point?”

“ _Reyes is the head of Talon PMC, and all of their contracts in the last few years have started to centre more and more on San Andreas. He’s looking for you. Myself and a few others assigned this case under the Overwatch Initiative know that he’s looking to kill everyone who had anything to do with Merryweather. That more than likely includes Fareeha, and with your antics he now has something to latch onto. We are just trying to protect you. The FIB gave you an out of Merryweather, but we have greater interest in stamping this whole PMC affair out for good. Please be careful, and if you require it, you can use this number to contact us directly_.”

She hung up, wordlessly pocketing her phone and leaned slowly against the wall. There were no tears, no rage, nothing but the sensation of her guts dropping as if they were a solid lead weight. She needed to be vigilant, but careful; she needed to keep an eye on her daughter. Merryweather went down to keep her from harm, and Talon would have to go too, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, Fareeha's got that mystery solved. The plot will make itself very apparent in her life soon tho, as you can see, in the upcoming chapters!


	13. Debriefing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More faces pop up in Los Santos, Hana chats to Lúcio and discovers something that makes things just a little bit awkward. Amélie Lacroix views the warehouse destruction.

Atop the Templar Hotel, Pillbox Hill stood a manmade garden full of ever blooming trees, water features and neatly paved pathways winding in between with not a straight line in sight. The din of modern life was only faintly audible, beneath a relaxing music track traditional to the opposite of the US West Coast, which played on the sound of the stream coursing around the peaceful space. In the centre, with a circle depicting two encircling dragons, sat the elder son of the Shimada clan, meditating serenely, above the constant movement and busyness of Los Santos.

Or at least, that was the idea until he heard footsteps approaching him rapidly.

With lightning quick reflexes he sprang to his feet and drew a knife he kept on his person at all times, confronting the intruder with the blade pointed at their neck, only to realise it was just his brother. Hanzo grumbled, slowly prying himself free of his aggressive posture “Genji, I would greatly appreciate you _announcing yourself_ before barging in. Every day I get closer to accidentally killing you, and despite how father has sometimes acted, he would be _extremely_ displeased if this happened.”

“We both know it wouldn’t be _that_ accidental,” his younger brother grinned as Hanzo sighed, putting his hands on his hips. His face, badly scarred but reconstructed well, became solemn “But there’s a good reason as to why I’m here— I’m here because I’m worried.”

“Are your teachings not panning out?” Hanzo asked, looking over to Genji’s close friend and confidant, the yogi Zenyatta, who seemed to appear from nowhere behind the younger Shimada brother, forever light on his feet “Did he give you that stupid Roomba device? The one that keeps attacking my ankles for some reason?”

“What, the Bastion model? Brother, please. It’s not sentient with a bias against you, don’t be so absurd. Besides, it’s not about Zenyatta, it’s about something else.”

“My guesses are dwindling in number. Is this about your _best friend_?” Hanzo scowled, sheathing the knife into its scabbard bound to his lower back and folding his arms. Zenyatta seemed to drift around the relaxation space, humming in delight at the gardening array as the brothers spoke.

“She saved my life! As well as my handsome face, for that matter. Anyway, don’t act silly; we owe her greatly, beyond token ‘friendship’. Even father says extending our protection to her was a good idea to show her our family’s gratitude. Look, I’m worried because that woman of black and gold is starting to follow her home a lot more, and especially after she killed a number of our men in that chase--.”

“That chase was a subset of our more opportunistic men taking law into their own hands, their deaths are not missed,” Hanzo muttered, annoyed at the lack of moral fibre their ‘ground troops’ had in places “Protecting our interests is one thing, harassing an old man for a small boat is nonsense. Good riddance, I say.”

“On top of everything—you know I watch D.Va’s stream regularly, right?—she’s there hanging out with D.Va somehow; she’s everywhere it seems, like she’s hounding me, and she’s _absolutely trying to steal Angela away_ and probably murder her or something!” Genji exclaimed, trying to arrest Hanzo’s focus onto the evidently most important part of this whole conversation. The part about their men lacking discipline would wait, that was always their father’s concern. The younger sibling brushed his hands through his black hair (recently adding bright green streaks to it) “I’m not about to wait and see our reputation as guardians go down the drain if we let the doctor fall through our protective net. I’ll go on a quest— _Angelaquest_!”

Hanzo glared, snarling at him with something between exasperation and irritation—mostly due to that one internet tune that Genji was obsessing over currently. Earworm tracks are one thing, but this tunnel vision that Genji would work himself into was another. Any logical hole he'd point out, his little brother would ignore outright or brush aside-- even if he gently suggested that this woman hadn't hurt the streamer girl so why on earth would she harm Angela, his brother would just... wilfully do acrobatic leaps of thought away from the point. Sometimes it got to him, like it did right there “If you’re working yourself up over Angela merely having found a lover, I’m going to kill me and then you.”

Genji acted utterly oblivious to his brother, as expected, striking a bold pose “Mark my words; if she tries to leave Los Santos with Angela, I’m going to pull the elites with me and get her back.”

“ **Genji**.”

“Hanzo, listen, if Angela _was_ in danger, don’t tell me you wouldn’t commit to helping her out?”

He sniffed, his countenance becoming haughty “She is a significant reason why one of our properties is spinning gold, so perhaps with that in mind.”

“Good to know you’re the truly selfish brother here,” Genji huffed, turning on his feet to leave, beckoning Zenyatta to follow him “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, teacher. I’d like to try a mountain meditation instead of this cutthroat nonsense. Just, less _cougars_ this time.”

“To be at peace within nature, you cannot change what makes up nature,” the yogi wisely responded, or at least the cadence of his voice implied wisdom to his odd words. Hanzo watched the two shuffle into the building, and sighed. He had a hunch his brother was on the wrong track; though he meant so well, the elder Shimada dreaded the thought of him jumping the gun as he would so often, but incite the wrath of their short-tempered father by wasting resources on a wild goose chase. His attention was in Liberty City: if anything was to derail that, he feared for the consequences.

* * *

As the sun bore down on concrete paths and sunburnt tourists, Hana stretched her arms, leaning back over the bench facing out onto Vespucci Beach, watching Lúcio skate lazily towards her. The DJ looked drained, swerving around and planting himself on the vacant spot beside his friend with less finesse than what she was expecting. She blinked, tilting her head “Yo, dude, you look wiped.”

“And you look like you just struck gold. What’s got you so pumped?”

“Hey, I asked first!” Hana chuckled, sitting forward.

“And I asked you _second_ ,” Lúcio answered, clicking the fingers on one hand into a brief point at her “But I guess—man you know how I was telling you that chick in the hospital keeps bossin’ me the hell around? Someone finally surgically removed the giant stick outta her ass; whether it’s her, or she finally got laid, I dunno. I’m tired, sure, but it wasn’t such a pain cleaning the equipment this time round without her on my case.”

“I’m sorry y’gotta do that job to begin with, for Uni and getting your musical equipment… but hey, least she’s… kinda off your back for now?”

“Yeah, s’just weird,” Lúcio hummed, idly scratching behind his ear as he stared vacantly along the horizon “So what’s up with you?”

“Weeeeeeeeeeeell,” Hana began, already set far too lively for what her poor Brazilian buddy could handle “S’funny you talking about someone getting laid cos guess who totally got itttttt~!”

There was a faint, vague attempt at a laugh but it sounded like a weak giggle at best. Poor guy was tuckered the fuck out. He shook his head, dreadlocks jingling around with the golden looking clasps holding the individual parts closed at the ends “Congrats? Shit, I dunno what you want me to say, other than good job not messing your torso up any extra. Some hookup from the dorms or…?”

“Nah,” Hana grinned, puffing up her chest as much as she could with the tiniest pang from her body pleading with her not to get too boastful “My cool as fuck roommate host mom made some arrangements, and I got to bang a smokin’ hot surgeon friend of hers. We got, uh, creative so my body’s aight.”

"A surgeon." The DJ’s face shifted into suspicion.

“You alright?”

“Did you get her name?”

“Well yeah, of course! I needed to know what I was gonna be yelling all night, duh. Her name’s Satyohhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Hana’s eyes widened in realisation, soon joined by a meek, sheepish grin “Ohhhh, oh dear. I didn’t even think about that. Haha, shit. Uh, at least it’s a fling?”

He let out a long sigh and shook his head.

“Look, I’m fine with whatever you’re gonna do in your personal life s’long as you’re happy, right? But like, I ain’t gonna lie; it was nice that Satya didn’t get all shitty with me for a change.” He paused, his previous grumpy expression slowly filtering into a wry look over at the Korean “Hey, are you really just making it a once-off, or are you gonna go after that?”

She stopped, looking pensive and a little glum “…Don’t you think she might be outta my league?”

Lúcio yelled a wordless cry of frustration, shoulders sagging down “ ** _Dude_** , she’s the queen of high goddamn standards! If she’s happy to _bang_ you, that’s like the toughest thing taken care of. Lord knows I’ve heard the gossip about how picky she can get from the other doctors, more info than I _ever_ wanted to learn. Thanks, Dr Ziegler.” 

Hana ran her hand through her hair, ruffling the back of it with a contemplative frown “Ehhh, I dunno. I mean, I do really like her—it’s kinda hard not to be sorta awed by her whole everything, uh, at least from my point of view. If I can cross paths with her again, I’mma do my best, but I’m gonna just hang onto how amazing that one time was til then. It's easy to lose someone in this city.”

“Give it a go? If you get it, hah, maybe I won’t have to put up with her shit if she’s in a good mood!”

The gamer shoved him with a hearty laugh “So fuckin’ selfish! I see what you're playing at!”

* * *

Murrietta, at the smoking ruins of the former Vagos warehouse.

The smell of burning gas still hung thickly in the air, the smoke all but dissipated by now, and all of the vital wares that were kept safe beneath corrugated steel roofs were obliterated. Any bodies that had fallen here had long since been taken away to the morgue to be identified as firearm victims rather obviously and then shuffled off to medical universities to be picked apart. The damage of the goods probably sent Talon back a few million, never mind the loss of manpower, a figure that would be crippling for most but given the nature of the PMC it was simply a minor dent.

Heels crunched under the dirt and debris, as a woman paced among the aftermath, looking over every last bit of illicit resources rendered unusable by the blast. Her lip curled into a grimace, narrowing her keen eyes as she visually picked through the blackened mess, spotting the evidence of detonators scattered about. Who could have done this?

She drew her phone from a pocket inside her long coat, calling the first number that needed to know.

“Lacroix.”

“Reyes,” she replied “I’m at the warehouse. There were detonators involved and the destruction is quite comprehensive. I don’t think there’s anything salvageable left.”

She held the phone from her head with a wince as her accomplice roared in fury. A minute passed, until Lacroix could tell he was calm enough to talk “Who could have done this? Those ‘Ballas’ and the ‘Families’ hardly have a hope of prying free from their mutual death spiral to do anything else outside of their feud, let alone this. The Shimada, maybe?”

“Their concerns are elsewhere,” the sullen Reyes replied, now relatively even enough to talk “Their prowess lies in backdoor, legal façade nonsense and there’s been someone harassing their less than legal side. I doubt they’d go out of their way for this.”

“The government then? Have they had enough?”

“They couldn’t have done it alone. Probably got _Amari_ in on this if they’ve noticed the focus on San Andreas.”

She sucked in a shallow breath, hoping that this wasn’t the case. Her silence did not go unnoticed, as her Talon superior’s voice positively brimmed with malevolence “If she’s responsible for this, she’ll be top of the goddamn list of former Merryweather snakes that we need to be rid of.”

Amélie glanced over to the gap of the smoking ruins where the city in full unfurled below, pondering if her old mentor was really squirrelled away within it. The tone on the other end of the line became more incensed at her quiet “I _don’t care_ that she mentored you, your mission is clear. You’ve gotten cold feet before and just took her eye. If you don’t take her **_life_** next time I’ll reconsider my generosity with yours.”

“Understood,” she finally managed with a rasp to her voice, her gut cold with the thought. It was a miracle she managed to pull the trigger the first time, but to definitively kill was another story. The sharpshooter took some pictures of the smoking chaos to bring back to the HQ—wherever Reyes deemed secretive enough—and drove away, wondering if this time, _this time_ she’d prove herself useful to the man after he spirited her away from the aftermath of Gérard’s murder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More plot! Bit more Hana than before in this chapter and a few new faces have appeared too. We're back to the Amaris next chapter!  
> For Angelaquest, just imagine the Brodyquest tune; Genji is a purveyor of recently vintaged memes as much as Hana and Lúcio are.  
> (The Bastion Roomba idea is hoverbun's idea, they are the tactical genius here.)


	14. Miscommunications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genji does what Hanzo wishes he wouldn't and pursues Fareeha.

The next morning, Angela brought Fareeha out to the cinema—a continuation from Del Perro Pier, she called it—and the two were treated to some of the most bizarre art-house films from around the world. Lunch was more successful, in a fancy restaurant located along Portola Drive whose ludicrous prices at least reflected ludicrously tasty food compared to its competitors; the main topic of conversation was the strange concepts in the films they just watched (“More like shit made up on the fly,” Fareeha huffed), fresh enough to be deconstructed and made fun of. Still, as Angela got the bill (insisting, that she put Mercy to work which made Fareeha both laugh and shy away awkwardly), the afternoon was more of a solid success of a date rather than the Pier’s gentle introduction in comparison. The couple left, linking arms loosely as the sun smiled upon the city once more.

“I know, I know, it’s not very becoming of me to have such an astounding weakness for daiquiris but there you are.”

“I’d thought you’d be more of a wine aficionado, personally,” Fareeha chuckled, thumb stroking Angela’s arm leisurely “No reds, whites? Anything from the Marlowe Vineyard in the mountains?”

“Nah, I think champagne is the closest I get, and that’s usually when the hospital staff are celebrating something,” the doctor replied with a shrug, careful not to break their link “Or someone’s leaving. Usually someone has to leave for the good bubbly ones to be brought out.”

Fareeha tried to remember the last time she had anything even resembling champagne, but nothing was coming to mind, not even the celebrities she had to occasionally ferry through the sky gave her anything remotely like that. Oh well, she got paid good money at least; it was better than trying to rely on charity that most Los Santos based celebrities didn’t believe in. She looked around for her trusty car; once she spotted the Tailgater idling in the sun, she ushered Angela over towards it “Maybe we’ll share a bottle sometime? For now though, where would you like to go next?”

“How about I go back to your place?” the blonde winked, making her movement towards the passenger door and seat as seductive as she could, the deliberate sway of her hips robbing the pilot of speech momentarily.

“Ah…”

Fareeha took so long to respond that Angela shimmied over in the car and shoved open the driver’s door for her, almost smacking the Egyptian in the side “Ow! What? Oh, sorry.”

As she buckled in, her hands froze as they settled on the wheel as realisation swept over her like a Pacific wave smacking amateur surfers off of their boards. Her mother was in Vespucci now, and given her reaction to Hana—merely a roommate, and look what happened—what the hell was she going to do if she found out she was now dating a doctor? She was **_not_** going to mention the stripper part, of course, because the last person who should know **_anything_** about Mercy was Ana Amari. Who knows what would happen? She only ever badgered Fareeha’s friends, acquaintances and whatnot with old stories; a partner would potentially face up to something terrifyingly new that managed to elude Fareeha’s imagination. A partner with such a curious past would be subject to something that not even she could guess, on top of her mother being unpredictable enough as is, and all of that was a recipe for total unmitigated disaster, so she better not risk it.

Angela eventually had to wave a hand in front of her face what with Fareeha unable to respond for two minutes.

“Oh! Uh, sorry, I’m not sure if we can head back to my current place right now—,” she began once snapped to attention, grasping for alternatives “But… I suppose this is a bit crazy to spring on you out of the blue, especially since it’s in Blaine County, but I can always show you where I used to live when I was younger?”

“The family home? Such humble beginnings!” Angela chuckled, looking worryingly excited over the prospect of going to Blaine Fucking County, but Fareeha knew where the guns were if anything were to go down badly with the other locals. “I know that’s a bit of a road trip, but hey who cares? It sounds like a bit of fun. I’ve always wondered what the rural parts of America were like.”

As the engine rumbled to life, the pilot’s expression made the most valiant, if losing, attempt at a smile “It’s…ehhhh… It’s not _amazing_ but I think it’s important to see all sides of the US, in my opinion. San Andreas has two different brands of crazy: city crazy and country crazy. We might see some of the latter, who knows. Otherwise you’ll get a nice view of the Alamo Sea, maybe.”

Maybe. She might save the ‘shining with the glimmer of myriads of lost syringes and illegal waste’ descriptor for another time, as she guided the Tailgater into the hills, through the fantastically named Mad Wayne Thunder Drive and beyond by North Rockford Drive. With a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gesture, Angela caught a momentary glimpse of the house Fareeha currently resided in before the countryside welcomed them.

* * *

Genji’s phone suddenly roared into life, causing Hanzo to jump to his feet out of surprise as the two glanced over the property reports, cloistered away on the top of the Templar Hotel, with the financial district they had a significant hold on in full view. The elder Shimada glared, struggling to regain his decorum as his younger brother answered the phone, though the sharp look vanished when he watched Genji grow extremely serious.

“Alright, thanks for the warning. Send word to the boys, we’re rallying the best for this.”

“Brother, what’s the matter?”

“Angela’s being driven to city limits,” he answered grimly, getting to his feet and rapidly walking to the elevator “I’m leading the team to get her back safely.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake— _I’m_ going with you,” Hanzo grumbled, keeping up. “Someone needs to keep a check on your self-appointed guardian nonsense.”

Genji scoffed with a raised brow “You care about Angela now?”

“More so that I think this is a _terrible_ idea as well as gross misinterpretation of the situation, and I’d like to be there to tell you ‘I told you so’ as soon as humanely possible.”

“Please note that _I_ get to do that if _I’m_ right.”

Hanzo enunciated his next word with particular stress “ ** _If_**.”

* * *

An hour later, the freeway began to open up in the shade of the mountains overlooking Los Santos. Traffic was mild but annoyingly present nonetheless, as Fareeha steered the Tailgater around trucks, vans and other cars with ease. Angela peered out over the driver’s side, spotting a small building with kayaks and jetskis alike. “Huh, extreme sports in this ravine? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I see the daredevil wannabes pretty often. You can’t shake the adrenaline rush, apparently. This guy, his name is Dom—really annoying—and he thinks he’s the king of them all. There’s gauntlets he creates where skydiving segues into biking down Chiliad, then jetski racing across the Alamo Sea.”

“There’s a point where that cannot be healthy,” Angela deadpanned, trying to reconcile such ideas in her head as anything remotely appealing.

“I mean, only you could tell me if that’s the case or not, what with your vocation,” Fareeha grinned back, all pearly white teeth shining impishly, turning her car to the right though gesturing left for the doctor to follow “Up there’s the Marlowe Vineyards—it’s got a great view of the valley, the Zancudo river and the military base named for it.”

“A military base opposite a vineyard? Sounds kind of bleak.”

“You just wait til we see Sandy Shores,” the pilot sighed “When I say humble beginnings, I mean it.”

 “I bet,” Angela replied with a knowing nod, a little muted realising that the countryside was probably going to be a fairly dreary affair until something in the rear view mirror caught her eye “…huh, those cars are still behind us.”

“What cars?” Fareeha looked up, and blanched as she noticed quite a few jeeps trailing her, all black with green accents. One had some sort of dragon decal on the bonnet, that sight was certainly new but only magnified the dread that suddenly kicked in. _The Shimada were following them_. “…shit.”

She hastily grabbed her phone as her foot leaned harder on the pedal, dialling the one number she figured would help out here—they’ve done it before, they can do it again, surely—and pressed the iFruit against her ear with a shoulder “Hey, Winston?”

“ _Fareeha! Hello, hope all is well after that little boat ride. Is that Hana girl alright?_ ”

“Yeah she’s never been better. Look, I’m hitting Blaine County and those assholes are chasing me again. Can you do anything about it?” She tried pretty hard to ignore Angela’s face changing instantly into worry at the prospect of a bunch of assholes following them, to little effect.

“ _Ah… I’m afraid we won’t be able to field an adequate response in Blaine County the way we can in the city… Besides, I believe in your ability to dispense countryside justice on them. It’s a no man’s land out there after all_.”

“Don’t I know it. Thanks anyway,” Fareeha mumbled, hanging up as a jeep caught up and rammed the rear of the Tailgater, jerking her and Angela about inside “FUCK!”

“Fareeha, what’s going on?! Do you know these guys?”

“Long story, they just _really_ don’t like me!” Rubber tires screeched as she fought with the accelerator to boost ahead to the T-junction and swinging violently right, weaving between frantically honking vehicles neutral to both parties. The poor doctor held onto the dash and lowered her head like she was bracing for an aircraft emergency landing, terrified as she tried to focus her breathing. Fareeha growled, switching gears and flooring it to try goad her valiant car into going flat out, long enough to reach the landmark of the lonely church in the Zancudo Grande Valley with a thunderous roar of the engine putting all of its might in. All this time the pursuers continued to try dent and crumple their car, a task thankfully more difficult for all the unfortunate civilian vehicles in between. Some managed to miss their target entirely and swerve into the wrong side of the road, or even careen into the valley itself when others got too zealous in their pursuit.

The slip road beckoned and with a sharp turn left, the battered Tailgater managed to get on up and turn left towards the trailer park town, passing the creaky old oilfield. There was a short breather, in which Fareeha’s phone rang.

“Yes?”

“ _Yo eomma, where the heck are you?  I’m gonna get dinner n I was gonna make you some traditional Korean food stuff, so I can prove to you I can actually eat **real** food you keep yapping about_.”

“Hana, look—I appreciate this immensely but, I’m kind of in a sticky situation right now—.”

“ _Ewww_.”

“Head out of the gutter, I’m being chased by a bunch of guys trying to ram me off the road and I’m near Sandy Shores. I’m gonna be stuck out here and I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Look after the house, okay?”

She could hear the girl’s expression change like her tone did “ _Y-yeah, alright, you stay safe though promise?_ ”

“I’ll do my best. Later,” Fareeha sighed, turning onto the dirt road when her phone rang again. Thinking it was Hana calling back, her voice was a little curter than she would’ve normally liked to be, but hopefully given the situation it’d be allowed “ _What_ now?”

“ _Hello to you too, little bird_.” Oh, right.

“Mother? Sorry, I’m just having a very bad day right now--.”

“ _Well then, tell me what ails you_.” Not that Fareeha was particularly keen on spilling the beans now about Angela and all the other things going on **_especially_** when she was trying to avoid her mother in the _first_ place, but if anyone would help with ostensibly violent gangs, it’d be her slightly bonkers mom.

“I… I’m heading back to the old home in Sandy Shores. I was planning on showing Angela where I grew up--.”

“ _Who is Angela?_ ” her mother asked immediately, her tone of voice highly and worryingly inquisitive “ _That’s a lovely name. Is she nice? Are you just friends? Or are you dating?_ ”

“Mother we’re being chased by men in jeeps trying to run us off the road, same as that escapade you went on. This can wait til we’re all out safe,” Fareeha cut through bluntly, car quickly avoiding a wayward coyote and crossing the threshold into Sandy Shores proper “I think we’ve enough time to barricade ourselves into the house before they track us down, so please, hurry.”

“ _Ah. I’ll be right there_.”

If anything she could at least be glad her mother had priorities, albeit sometimes hard to come by.

* * *

The tiny house by the marina stood silent, free of Shimada, as she pulled the car in. Angela let herself out, taking a moment to take in the crude fencing around the sandy plot of land; the balcony perched over a trailer as well as part of the main building. This was the little roost from which this tall, dark and handsome Egyptian-American grew and took flight. Trying to imagine Fareeha anything smaller than the finely tuned bundle of sex appeal and sleek musculature stepping out of her sportscar was _astoundingly_ difficult. Maybe she could find some childhood photos inside?

She paced towards a clunky looking construction desk with blueprints still on it—something to do with a boat it seemed. A curious sight hung below the natural arch of balcony over trailer and house: an Egyptian flag when normally it’d be rare to see anything but the Stars and Stripes dangling from every available pole. Fareeha looked around, keeping an eye out not only for Maibatsus in the distance, but also nosy locals who might take a little too kindly to two attractive women just appearing out of nowhere.

“How quaint—it’s got a remarkably unique flavour to it though,” Angela murmured, eyes scanning over the golden emblem seated in the white of the red-white-black. She drew closer, tentatively reaching out towards the aged fabric “What an unusual place to find a flag like this…”

There was an explosion. Two, three—with each successive one they got louder and louder meaning the source was drawing closer to where the couple were. Sensing danger, Fareeha fought the door to the point of unlocking, and, once she grasped Angela’s wrist, hurried the Swiss woman in; peering around the door and the shutter alike at what the hell was going on. In the distance, there were a score of Shimada jeeps along with a red pickup truck keeping up trading shots but more worryingly explosives—purely from the truck.

Was—Was that her _mother_ driving the pickup that the fucking bombs were coming from!?

Aghast, Fareeha stared as the flock of smooth Shimada cars and 4x4s alike were reduced in half into smoking, fiery wrecks, as the pickup swerved to the side of the house rather than ploughing through and potentially claiming a life that they were supposed to defend. Ana beamed at her daughter from behind the wheel as those two weird men who seem to be housesharing with her in Vespucci hopped out of the back with some serious looking artillery in their hands.

The huge gasmasked man grunted a hello, his smaller, wiry friend beamed at her with a lone ‘g’day’ as they took positions behind the pickup—no doubt her mother’s doing, instilling that sort of habit—as the Shimada remainder formed a vehicular wall around the house leaving only the marina as the most viable path away. No doubt they were trying to lock down any escape routes. Dozens of men spilled out with rapid fire guns, all pointed at the door where Fareeha stood, as a man hopped out of the dragon decaled jeep with green streaks in his hair barking in ominous Japanese. Another with a beard followed, bracing a very ominous looking crossbow on his shoulder.

Ana shouted, waving her daughter away “Get in, little bird! I’ll keep them back.”

The pilot hastened in, closing the door behind her and rushing past Angela to check the usual hiding places where her mother often hid the high powered firearms. Just in case, of course, especially given that there were a few dozen rifles trained on all of the windows with possible grenades to follow (that was a guess, but she didn’t think these guys did anything by halves). She felt a hand on her shoulder, compelling her to pause her search and look up into Angela’s lovely face so dreadfully wrought with concern.

“Who are these men? Who are you in such trouble with?” she asked, barely a drop of blood left in her face, all nerves and muscles coiled and ready to flee if possible.

“Seems like the Shimada really don’t like me trying to show you the scenic route,” Fareeha attempted to quip, mostly focused on preservation rather than jokes as she lifted the couch pillows to find the assault shotgun she thought existed there.

“…did you just say the Shimada?” the doctor asked, brows frowning. The light through the blinds caught her face at an angle that turned her vibrant blue eyes a curious shade of orange, enough to cause the Egyptian to stumble on her words, simply nodding quickly.

Angela took it in, thinking for a moment before her eyes widened (in time with the shower of gunfire exchanged outside, as Fareeha cautiously peered out to see if anything grim had happened). She stole a glance through the blinds outside after Fareeha, noting the trading of gunfire and their sources, scanning the Shimada line for faces she hoped she wasn’t going to recognise. Alas, once she caught not one but _two_ familiar men, she lowered her face into her hands with a sigh so exasperated it could have shifted the tectonic plate to the left.

“Oh my god. Genji, you _absolute **fucking idiot**_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plenty of hours in GTA spent just scouting the routes taken and making sure they're reasonably accurate to the map, and figured I'd get a quick nod to GTA5's idiot side-mission giver Dom there in the banter. The thrilling conclusion to the Shimada standoff comes next!*
> 
> *my bad there's a Widowmaker-centric chapter but THEN the end of the standoff will be next, sorry orz


	15. Ghosts and Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie Lacroix is deep in thought. You can guess who turns up to bother her.

The Vinewood letters shone brightly, reflecting the sun’s rays off of glossy white paint; normally there were a few hourly minivan trips ferrying easily impressed tourists between these and the maintenance station some metres away, but today was quiet. With not enough demand to necessitate the usual tourist bussing, that left the landmark in enough peace for Amélie Lacroix to take refuge from her hectic underworld career, even if only for a moment. It was just her standing atop the 30ft letter W, the unparalleled view, and enough fresh air to allow her to reflect on her situation, if the weather continued to allow for it. (Judging by the rare sight of heavy clouds from the northwest, maybe it wouldn’t remain clear for long.)

She went from wannabe trick shooter to French Olympian hopeful on respite in the United States, seeking a rather unorthodox mentor thanks to her then-fiancé’s suggestion to hone her skill. How Gérard knew of Ana Amari, she had long resigned herself to the likelihood that she’d never find out; simply letting it fall to the simple fact that Los Santos carried myriad possibilities within, so such a friendship was easily viable within its limits. Sighing, she swept a hand over her tied-back hair, briefly reliving the first attempt she made on Ana—it happened the same year she married Gerard, the same year he died, frankly it was a miracle she even managed to hit her in any shape or form.

Ana lost her eye but Amélie lost the last contact with anyone from her life before hell broke loose and tore it apart from the almost-fairytale manner it had been before. The middle-aged Egyptian woman had been a patient teacher, a jovial friend of Gérard’s, and a kind, generous person all round; that bullet was almost a symbolic severance of ties in itself, one Reyes demanded so ardently as her first test upon discovering she had been familiar with the former sniper. That was about 6 years ago now, and now that Reyes had adamantly decided that Ana was the source of some bizarre new incidents in the city, so she would be put to task once again to finally end her life once and for all.

The Frenchwoman grimaced, feeling the craving itch at the corner of her brain and call for its fulfilment as her fingers became antsy for that fix. Slender fingers plucked out a Redwood cigarette (absolute shit, but she had to make due since smuggling better quality stuff from the Bay of Biscay was out of the question for Reyes—a mystery to her still when far more illegal drugs were fair game) and a lighter, and just as she brought the tiny gas flame to the end, the worst possible voice in the world chimed from below.

“Smoking kills, love!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she sighed. “You again?”

Lena grinned despite Amélie’s exasperated question “Yeeeeeup, tis none other than my fine self. What’s got you out here?”

“Cut the shit; are you here to arrest me?” the woman hissed, issuing tobacco smoke from between her clenched teeth “I know you’re a government agent, even if you’re here on business rather than pleasure.”

The Englishwoman held up her hands with a surprised chuckle, shaking her head and stepping back once “Wow, y’got me in one huh! Actually, I’m not here to clamp cuffs on you or anything like that. I’m just here to talk.”

“Oh, fuck _off_ ,” Amélie rolled her eyes, turning her attention to the view again. She heard the sound of footfalls on a ladder distantly, getting gradually louder, looking over to see that her unexpected company had decided to climb on the O to her left.

“I mean it, pottymouth. I’d like to know what the whole story is—or at least as much as you’re willing to share.”

“Is this how MI7 interrogates enemies of Her Majesty?” Amélie scoffed, exhaling another cloud of Redwood smoke.

“Well… no, but I’ve done my homework on you thanks to collaboration with the French authorities, so I know there’s something not quite sitting right.” Lena looked thoughtful, following the Talon operative’s gaze back over the city. “You disappeared after Gérard Lacroix’s murder almost 6 years ago, only for a woman of your description to be documented in Talon PMC ‘excursions’ in some troubled regions back across the Atlantic, with Talon having all sorts of criminal links too in recent years. Weird place for an Olympian to turn up, y’know?”

“I never made it that far,” Amélie gently corrected Lena, her voice soft and her posture a little less standoffish than before.

“Doesn’t have to be that way!” Lena chirped, smiling over at her hopefully with a confident pose “You can always cut loose and go back to training up and representing France! Plenty of time left to polish up for the next games anyways, not the same kind of pressure on you as gymnasts or anything. Definitely a prospective medallist, I say.”

There was no immediate response. The agent’s cheery demeanour waned, looking on as Amélie remained motionless and silent to her genuine attempts to talk her out of Talon.

“What makes you do it? What’s stopping you from dropping the PMC nonsense?”

“My friend, I am still a wanted criminal at the end of the day,” Amélie chuckled bitterly. “I couldn’t hope to return to civilian life, even if I wished for this nightmare to end so desperately.”

“…what is it that keeps you glued to Reyes? You’re running with a bloody ghost, why not be free of all this rubbish?”

“If only it were that easy to be free of such haunting things. You say you have done your homework, hmm? You read on Gérard Lacroix’s murder, yes?”

“Yeah, the post-mortem was unpleasant but witnesses said you were in the house with him about the time it happened, but there was no sign of you after--.”

Amélie swerved to face her, face contorted into anger and disgust alike—none for the agent, but all reserved for herself—spitting “Don’t try and foist innocence on me when you know I have _none_ in the matter. I killed him, I did it in a haze and I know I did. The reason I seemed to vanish was because Reyes stepped in and smuggled me away. The caveat was that I would assist him as he assisted me in evading the police, and I have done so since.”

Lena didn’t press the matter, looking downwards to find her words, but the evidence didn’t quite align with the furious admission of guilt (there were so many variables: Gérard’s ribs were shattered beyond repair by strength that Amélie couldn’t have boasted, there were discarded sedatives that were not available to civilians in any shape or form, there were other fingerprints beside the Frenchwoman’s own on the knife that disfigured the corpse). Reyes must have chanced upon a horrible, warped incident and preyed upon a vulnerable woman in order to recruit her for skill, adding further nasty layers to the already storied Merryweather-Talon file that she’d have to report back to Winston.

“I don’t think this is such an open and close case, but I won’t keep at you,” Lena said, her expression solemn, jaw set firmly. Amélie blinked, mildly taken aback—she was expecting persistence in the British agent’s innocent-until-proven-guilty argument. The MI7 operative started back down the ladder, taking a moment to look up at the sniper “I will say I still believe there’s a future for you away from Talon and Reyes.”

“Touched that you still do.”

“Adieu,” Lena murmured, stopping only when Amélie called her attention. “Eh?”

“Au revoir, you mean,” the Frenchwoman corrected quietly, extinguishing her cigarette on the inside of the rail “Adieu is too final a goodbye; I have no doubt we shall meet again.”

“Better circumstances, I hope.” The agent meant every word as she made her way back downwards, driving back to civilisation once feet met the ground rather than ladder rung.

Amélie watched her depart the whole way with her phone beginning to buzz angrily in her pocket. Once she was sure that only nature lay in earshot, she answered—the number spoke of Talon but it wasn’t Reyes this time, rather his protégé of a sort.

“ _Amiga, how you doin’? Boss asked me to check on you. You’ve been kinda quiet not answerin’ calls_.”

“Ah, Sombra,” Amélie was unsure if she should be pleased she was speaking to her rather than Reyes, but her voice was much more pleasant on the ear than the gravelly, deathly rumble “Apologies. I needed some space before my next, hopefully successful, attempt on Captain Amari. What about you?”

“ _Eh, quiet morning. Trolled D.Va until that Lúcio fuck banned me again. As you can tell, I got pretty few leads. Ana’s a tricky lady to get a hold of, even if bossman’s totally positive that was her drivin’ the Shimada truck in that big-ass East Los Santos car chase_.”

“…You were bothering a gamer? Do you _need_ something to do?” Amélie asked with a ghost of a laugh in her voice “I have some ideas if you’re willing to hear me out.”

“ _Oyyyy, that depends entirely on what you want me doing. Don’t get too adventurous, I got standards y’know_.”

“Sombra.”

“ _I’m fuckin’ with ya, lady_!” The hacker laughed on the other end, somehow managing enough levity to coax a tiny smile on Amélie’s face even as she rolled her eyes “ _Look. Tell me what it is but you gotta remind me later. I think Scream over here wants me to start sussing out Ana’s daughter or something now. Farah? Whatever her name is_.”

 _Fareeha_ , Amélie wanted to correct her but the words refused to budge from her mind, _Fareeha is her name_. She met the younger Amari briefly before in the couple of years she had been learning precision shooting under Ana’s tutelage, though this was easily a decade ago at this rate. They were close enough in age for the sniper to bring it up every now and then, not too subtly suggesting that there were occasions Amélie had more in common with Ana than her own daughter did with her mother. That sort of thinking curled a miserable vice grip of sadness around her heart, and with a heavy sigh she forced her brain to focus elsewhere.

“ _You okay amiga? I can’t be pissing you off **already**_.”

“Not at all. Just… when you have time, please look for everything you can to do with Gérard Lacroix’s murder.”

“ _Whoa, that’s heavy shit for you to spring not just on me, but back on yourself. You sure? I can give you terabytes of cute spiders or whatever animal you want instead_.”

Amélie huffed. She knew Sombra was genuinely trying to be nice, but sometimes she just pressed her buttons a little too well “I don’t like spiders that much.”

“ _Don’t tattoo a web to your arm then or shit, I guess. Yeah though, I can get you police reports and shit if you’re super positive on this, as well as cute animal pictures that you are gonna totally need afterwards. Remind me though, okay? Digging up Farah’s shit’s taking priority first_.”

“Fareeha. It’s Fareeha.”

“ _Huh, I must be thinkin’ of the Fawcett. My b, my b. I’ll buy you a drink to make up for it_.”

Now Amélie was feeling the last of her patience “Unnecessary.”

“ _Y’wound me_!” was all she heard before she hung up with a gruff ‘enough’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't care about the characters who are in Talon until I started planning this fic.  
> (I still kinda don't care about them in the game other than I play them reluctantly if my mains aren't working out.)  
> But yeah, I don't like Widowmaker in canon but now I accidentally gave her a super interesting and sad AU backstory at least to me, in case you're wondering how the writing got suddenly very invested in her. Is this a vaguely shippy Widow chapter or is it not? I don't even know; it is a mystery.
> 
> i have no idea how i write sombra she seems to just happen to the text file imo. anyway, next chapter will be back to the Shimadas, the Amaris and one pissed off doctor.


	16. Change In The Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The standoff in Sandy Shores is brought to an end by the most unlikely participant. Later, old mercenaries reminisce.

“Genji Shimada? You know these guys?”

“ _Unfortunately_ ,” she growled, pacing towards the exit.

“Angela—Angela wait, where are you going?!” Fareeha asked, reaching out for the doctor only to find her hand batted away. She was on a mission, wrenching open the screen door and the main door in unison. Just as the Swiss woman rounded around the door, it shook with the force of two large shurikens embedding themselves barely 4 inches from her face—rather than a hail of automatic bullets. The entire battle stopped; everyone with their stares on Angela slowly moving her eyes, frozen to the spot, towards the sharp implements that could’ve easily found her face instead of wood and mesh.

All eyes traced the invisible trail that went from the shurikens to the outstretched arm of the apparent leader of this contingent of Shimada men, looking extremely shocked at either the person behind the door not being who he thought it was, or that the act nearly killed her outright. Angela’s face turned from surprise into outright anger.

“Genji Shimada!” Angela roared, enough to cause the underlings around the man to hastily raise their gun muzzles upwards and look to their leader, confusion multiplying as she engaged in an ugly torrent of _vicious_ Schweizerdeutsch while wildly gesticulating. She even dragged Fareeha back out, still furiously streaming her native language, while pointing at her and then at herself, as if she never left the city of Zurich to begin with.

“Angela, my friend,” Genji gently started, wincing as she let out a noise not unlike a kettle issuing steam from its spout “Please, in English. I do not know what you’re scolding me about.”

“ ** _YOU_** , my ‘ _friend’_ , are a _FUCKING **IDIOT**_!” she bellowed again, marching over to the barricade of cars, wilfully ignorant of the armed men all around him and absent of all previous fear that had built up. The troupe of suited men shuffled away, skirting closer together as if fearful of this blonde storm of fury “I wanted to go on a fucking trip to the old family home of my fucking girlfriend and here you are with your personal yes-men here looking to fill her with fucking bullets!? God help me, Genji Shimada, if you laid a finger on her I would have undid my work on your fucking face **_very readily_**!”

All through the tirade the man presumably named Genji flinched back further and further until Fareeha could only assuming he was beginning to fold in on himself. She glanced at Ana, who had rested the butt of her sniper rifle into the ground, letting the muzzle sit against her shoulder, and the Amaris shared a bewildered look. Ana instead smirked and laughed under her breath, whispering to her daughter “If these truly are the Shimada elite… well it seems they were far less than I expected.”

“That’s not an invitation to start screwing with their underlings on a car chase across the city all over again, you know,” Fareeha mumbled with a glare. Meanwhile, the man beside Genji bracing his crossbow shook his head and huffed, ready to grill him just as much as the fuming doctor.

“ _Idiot_ is right. I told you so, Genji--.”

“ ** _Hanzo_**! Not another word out of you,” Angela hissed, pointing accusingly at him with the same vitriol as his younger brother received, enough to actually start jabbing him in the chest with a furious index finger and utterly derailing what would’ve easily been the most smug older brother rant in written history “I thought you commanded enough respect for your men to not just go willy-nilly on a chase across the state based on a huge fucking misunderstanding!”

“F-Forgive me, Angela.”

“Do **_not_** bother Fareeha or her family, or anyone related to her again, and let her back into Los Santos without any of your crooks breathing down her neck!”

The two brothers nodded slowly, looking both caught ferociously red-handed with their heads hung low as they both murmured simultaneous apologies. Hanzo gruffly ordered something in Japanese and their men bewilderedly looked at each other as they started nonchalantly packing up and driving away as if nothing happened. All that was left were the brothers, a ruffled but calmer Angela, two perplexed Amaris and two junker Antipodeans amusing themselves by skipping stones and bricks along the Alamo Sea’s water surface as if they didn’t previously leave half of the Shimada fleet in fiery wreckage.

“Uh… so how do you… know these guys?” Fareeha mumbled, pointing towards the men navel-gazing in shame.

“Well, I managed to save Genji’s life on the operating table some years ago, after he narrowly escaped murder,” Angela began with a laboured sigh that drained the shaking fury from her posture “This came after another incident that I was too inexperienced to properly operate in, so you can imagine how relieved I was that this one turned out so well.”

There was a story there, but Fareeha elected to let it lie for the moment given the tiniest hint of a shake to her voice. Later, perhaps, she and Angela could talk at more liberty about the past.

“Our father, the leader of the Shimada clan based in the United States, granted her protection for saving Genji’s life,” Hanzo added, raising his head to look Fareeha in the eyes with a steely look more becoming of his appearance than gazing at his shoes eternally. Maybe he felt compelled to give her some context, she surmised. “We never quite told him that she was _also_ printing money for us, effectively, in one of his businesses beforehand--.”

Fareeha’s eyes widened and a chill curled upward through her spine, feeling her mother’s interest being piqued from 5 metres away. She cleared her throat, nodding quickly “So is this why you thought I was worth chasing?”

Angela shot the brothers a sharp glare as if to punctuate her question. Genji’s hand rubbed the back of his neck slowly as he tried to look everywhere but the Alpine blue glower “I… may have misjudged a lot of incidental evidence and acted out on paranoia.”

Hanzo rolled his eyes with a loud huff “Tch, that isn’t even _half_ of it. He even believed your presence on D.Va’s stream was that guaranteeing you were put on this earth to thwart him and his honourable duty in keeping Angela safe. I’m still trying to work out that particular leap of logic.”

As Fareeha’s palm got acquainted with her face, the doctor sighed “I’m sorry Fareeha, you see, Genji is a man of idealism who listens to his emotions. Unfortunately these are significantly divorced from his logical centres. Maybe one day this would be amended—but for right now I’d like him to _keep that away from my personal life_.” She paused, her expression softer as she exchanged a meaningful look with the pilot, holding it softly for a weighty moment “It’s taken me so long to find someone I genuinely like for who they are in this city, especially.”

Their hands met, interlocking loosely. Fareeha smiled shyly once she felt the doctor squeeze her palm gently. Hanzo glanced between them with a favourable smile, approving of the whole situation, stepping back towards the elite vehicle that delivered him and Genji to the doorstep of the old Amari home.

“You know—Fareeha, right?—you need not worry about the Shimada any longer. Consider our slate clean. We apologise for the difficulty we put you and your family through, and extend our protection to all of you.” He gestured with a broad sweep of his hand over the motley crew that stood outside the marina-adjacent house, before getting into the driver’s seat “Let us meet in better circumstances.”

Genji blinked, nodding quickly and chiming in as he clambered into the car with his brother “You bet! No one’s going to lay a finger on you guys while we breathe!”

The final Shimada car roared into life, fleeing for the city once more, leaving Fareeha and Angela with Ana and her junker roommates. Though there was calm, the couple shared the unspoken sentiment that there was someone else in the vicinity watching them somehow. The doctor looked around, and once she felt safe enough that vague paranoia was the sole reason she felt someone was peering at them, she sighed and wrapped her arms around Fareeha “Thank god _that’s_ over.”

“Hey,” the pilot chuckled, kissing the top of her fluffy blonde hair with shared reprieve “That’s my line.”

“I’m sorry they’ve been harassing you and your family,” Angela murmured, resting her head in the crook of Fareeha’s neck “At least now Genji knows to leave you alone. What an _idiot_. He really does mean well but, as I said, he likes to get ahead of himself.”

“Didn’t realise that Hana’s streams made him more suspicious about me,” Fareeha grumbled, shaking her head “At least, whatever it was, that’s the last of it. Let’s get back to Los Santos, once we get a good night’s sleep.”

As soon as she turned towards the house, she hesitated when her mother smiled broadly at her. Detecting the reluctance, Ana shook her head, raising her hands as the rifle lay unused against her shoulder “Ah, don’t you worry little bird; there’ll be no intruding on my part. I’m due to see Jack anyway; you shall have the house to yourself.”

“Really?”

“Really; you’ll get time with your new squeeze,” Ana nodded, chuckling once Fareeha’s face erupted into genuine gratitude and relief alike. “Oh come on, is your poor old mother that bad?”

“Considering you pissed off some of their guys as well, yes you can be that bad,” her daughter retorted. Realising that maybe before Ana left it might be timely to do introductions, Fareeha gently tugged Angela over and gestured between the two “Mother, this is Dr Angela Ziegler; Angela, this is my mother Ana Amari.”

Ana politely offered her hand to shake, about to take Angela’s when something mildly caught her attention. She narrowed her keen eye slightly, tilting her head back as she tried to spot what it is that felt familiar about the Swiss woman “Have we met…?”

“I—I don’t _think_ so…?” Angela replied with a similar cant of her head, trying to disguise her confusion and vague discomfort in the probing stare, taking Ana’s hand and shaking firmly. This old lady didn’t seem very familiar to her in any case. “It’s nice to meet you properly either way.”

“Likewise,” Ana flashed a charming, toothy smile (not terribly unlike Fareeha’s earlier in the day, but there was a _special_ trait to this one), enough to give Angela total pause and a solid 180 on her initial estimate, as the sniper motioned the Antipodean duo to follow her back into the pickup truck. “Little bird, I’ll see you later. Take care of Angela. If I’m back in the city before you, I’ll check on the hare too.”

“Thanks mother, that’s appreciated—I think she’s worried about me.” Fareeha waved her mother off, turning to face the doctor once the dust cloud from the truck dissipated into the air anew. Angela hadn’t really moved after the introduction, it seemed. The pilot slowly waved her hand in front of Angela’s now _extremely_ flushed face, calling her name a few times. “Hey.”

“I need to walk the dinner and put the dog in the oven,” Angela blurted out, wide-eyed like a deer caught in the headlights, before shaking the nonsense out of her head and smiling sheepishly “Uh, sorry, I got caught in a daydream.”

The pilot stared at that alarmingly vibrant red hue in her girlfriend’s cheeks “…Alright. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, maybe after all this excitement we should rest up, huh?” she suggested, loosely linking their hands together again, quickly changing the subject. Fareeha didn’t care much about the diversion nor seem to notice it if at all, all too happy to agree with a hearty stretch of her arms and a yawn, the idea an extremely welcome one post-Shimada standoff.

* * *

Jack Morrison’s farm, Great Chapparal.

“Oh, hey Ana. Reinhardt popped by too, great timing,” he greeted, stepping out of the way and welcoming her inside the cosy home with a hug and a couple of hearty pats to the back. “Jesse’s out at the moment, he’s checking Grapeseed and buying produce for the store.”

“You told him to, I’m assuming,” Ana deadpanned, only for Jack to laugh heartily and quickly nod. “That poor boy is useless, even after all this time you _still_ have to remind him.”

“Ah, he’s been good about it it. This is the first time he forgot to in a couple of years, honestly. Would y’like anything to eat or drink? Come in, come in.”

“Water. Are you boys sharing the beers?” she asked, shimmying into the kitchen where Reinhardt’s huge frame squashed comically onto the small wooden chair.

“Of course, I would never pass up the opportunity to drink with Jack in a million years!” he laughed as he stood up with great care, moving so he could embrace Ana with his tree-trunk sized arms. She chuckled quietly along with him, rubbing one hand on his broad back and patting with the other until he stepped away to be seated once more. Ana joined him at the table, and Jack completed the set. One chair sat empty, a symbol of something the old Merryweather sniper needed to speak about, with the subtlety of an elephant in the room. The men amused themselves with reminiscing, keen to continue avoiding it.

“What is this, an IPA?”

“Listen, that’s Jesse’s doing—he brought those in because he said he wasn’t on speaking terms with the old ‘Wasser stuff for the moment.”

Reinhardt roared with laughter, plonking the half-empty can onto the kitchen table “That _old stuff_ saw us through some interesting times of course! He was but a speck when we celebrated the big paycheck—you know after repelling Australia from the West Coast for the last time in ’83— with two crates of it!”

Ana remained silent but eyed him embellishing the tale with a gentle smile. The rank and file had shared the bulk of it with Gabe and Jack; Reinhardt merely had a couple of bottles at most, more preoccupied with not letting her feel left out or left behind by what was effectively a large frat party with guns and the government lining their pockets for pushing out a terribly organised invasion. Still, the occasion carried high emotions as well as hangover memories for the rest of them, for more reasons than were needed to be said aloud. Jack knew just as well as Ana that the German was getting creative to cover for something they all were on the same page with, chuckling as he brought the can to his own lips “Reinhardt, she’s not here. You don’t need to dance around it right now.”

“Ah. Yes, true… it is a difficult habit to break for over thirty years you know,” he sighed, relaxing his shoulders and letting his tiredness seep into his bones. “Have you seen our little griffon since the boat incident?”

“As a matter of fact I am here, right after I assisted Fareeha with the Shimada elite breathing down her neck. Everything reached a head by then it seemed, so the sons of the family’s leader were present. Things… didn’t turn into a bloodbath, thankfully,” Ana explained, taking a moment to quench her tongue with refreshing cool water “It seems her new partner has connections within the clan to make them stand down and leave her alone for good—and us by proxy if that helps.”

“A new partner?” Jack repeated, perking up, evidently happy for Fareeha though given all that had happened to the three. Judging from the term used, Ana was sure that her new squeeze was not a mere fling like so many previous dates had turned out to be. His next question would regardless hit a raw nerve, something Ana had been struggling with in the journey to his farm “She hadn’t had any real luck in the last few years, I remember you telling me. Are you going to tell her then, soon?”

“You both know why I’ve waited,” she began with a forlorn sigh, single eye cast downwards as she loosely folded her arms “I never wanted her to find out anything about Merryweather, especially when her origins essentially are tied intrinsically to it, lest she find herself in the centre of whatever mess that name would bring her. Whether that meant keeping her from attempting to follow suit in some way and getting hurt by it or worse…”

Ana paused, shaking her head sadly as she felt Reinhardt’s hand on her shoulder “See what good that’s done. She seems to be the centre of unwanted attention despite my efforts. Even the IAA has intervened, especially knowing that Reyes never died. He’s still out there, somehow, now that an Amari has gotten his attention; whether it was myself or Fareeha, I’m not quite sure yet.”

Jack’s jaw was set like he was gritting his teeth to the point where they would split in his mouth, his eyes normally a sheen of steely blue now gun-metal grey in the light. The can, thankfully empty, crinkled and crumpled in his gripped fist as he grumbled “I always had the feeling he survived our little _spat_ in North Yankton.”

“Reyes is not just alive and looking for us, he formed his own PMC called Talon to aid his pursuit. The IAA told me this while they admitted getting Fareeha involved in their own missions, saying it would at least conceal her from his rampage on all things Merryweather.”

Reinhardt looked like he was about to angrily condemn the Agency for getting the younger Amari involved but as Ana went on, the idea made more sense to him than he would’ve liked. He nodded reluctantly as he sat back, internally conceding to them the wisdom in their plan. Eventually he found his words, grave and solemn, a complete contrast to his usual attitude “I feel as if we are all marching to our deaths, in spite of our struggles to amend our past mistakes, and Reyes is a wraith to put us to task.”

“We weren’t getting any younger,” Jack joked, without the heart in it as his weary, sad eyes told a far different story.

“No, but I’m sure you’d like grandchildren as much as we would,” Ana replied, shrugging with the empty glass in hand “And that you’d like to see them before we shuffle from this mortal coil.”

“Ideally, but at least now we’ve got some kind of warning about Reyes. Guess we can be in touch if he springs anything outright on any of us, for better or worse.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now the Shimada are actually on the side of the Amaris, no doubt thanks to Angela's timely intervention, just in time too considering there's something much worse around the corner.
> 
> So, any guesses why Angela was all flustered back there? No? Thassokay let's just focus on sad worried old people who fucked things up in the 80s and it's catchin' the fuck up on them.


	17. A Complete Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela and Fareeha return to Los Santos. Hana yells at the whitest woman she's ever encountered, and she's lived in the city for a while.

A day later, Angela and Fareeha returned to Los Santos; the doctor couldn’t quite suppress the feeling of comfort seeing the skyscrapers and urban sprawl once more, but her lover took no offence—it was hard to when living in Blaine County equated to Darwinism in its purest form, what with the extreme lack of safety nets both literal and metaphorical out in the boonies. Compared to the tiny house huddled beside the lone marina looking out on the Alamo Sea, the pilot’s home in Richman was a spacious palace, though both locations offered at least some kind of natural beauty (Chiliad’s majesty was always overlooking the shacks of Sandy Shores and the syringe-riddled Alamo, while the Vinewood Hills forming the city’s organic defences from the rural population gave a birds-eye view away from the thick of the polluted Los Santos core). Guess some things are hard to shake for the Amari clan, even despite the wealth of the city they could never get away from Mother Nature after all.

“This is nice,” Angela commented, looking over the myriad shapes that formed the city’s skyline unfolding ahead of her, leaning against the parked Tailgater “I think you nabbed a better location than I did property-wise. My place is at the foot of the hills, rather than halfway up.” Not that she needed to elaborate on location, given Fareeha knew very well where it was.

“The view’s better at night,” the pilot replied, getting out of the driver’s seat and walking around to the Swiss woman’s side “Corny as it sounds, it turns into its own lightshow when you’re out here. It’ll be nice to watch them with someone for a change.”

“And not with your roommate?” Angela grinned, gently elbowing Fareeha’s taut stomach beneath her tanktop.

“She’s got her own lightshow, in the form of her PC covered in multicolour bulbs that keeps her occupied,” the Egyptian muttered with a slightly exaggerated eyeroll “Let’s head in, shall we?”

A passer-by weaved between the couple as they walked to the door, with a small crack sound interrupting the ambience of chirping birds and occasional cars driving by. Angela reached the door with Fareeha not that far behind her, when a woman’s voice called out to them “Hey!”

The two turned to look, seeing the owner of that voice crouched down and reassembling a phone that had lost its cover and battery to gravity—Fareeha’s, she realised, as she patted her pockets to find them much emptier than before. “Yo amiga, is this your phone?”

“Yeah, shit, hope it’s still functional,” the pilot said, hurrying over to her “Thanks for putting it back together at least.”

“No problem,” the eclectically dressed woman answered with a vivacious chirp, sweeping a hand through her purple-pink dyed hair over her undershave “I think your cover took the worst of the fall; nothing looks fucked up. iFruits aren’t super hardy, so you invested well.”

“Who am I thanking?” Fareeha asked, receiving the phone with a wink from the other woman. Angela bristled a little, but the gesture was ultimately harmless.

“Ah y’don’t need names from me. I’m just some lowly tech tinkerer, n’ this is my good deed of the day. You take care, ladies!” She waved with a click of her tongue and strode downhill towards Morningwood with a confident walk. The Egyptian blinked, watching her leave, before checking that her phone actually was saved by the cover like the stranger claimed; her legs on autopilot to bring her to the door. Seemed everything was fully functional judging by the complete normalcy of the menu and responsiveness, thank goodness.

“Hana!” Fareeha called as she opened the door, letting Angela go ahead and following her into the kitchen. No answer? That was unusual, the gamer would normally fire back a ‘oh shit whaddup eomma’ of some form— “Make yourself at home, just going to see if she’s around or if she left any messages.”

“Mind if I fix myself some coffee?”

“Go ahead, the mugs are in that cupboard and the machine’s pretty straightforward to use.”

Angela found herself the plainest possible mug (too many people with their favourite drinking vessels had featured in her life, Genji among one of them, so she knew better than take any with logos or phrases on them lest she be subject to shrill yelling in Japanese) and set about making something strong. Lord knows she was feeling like a little pick-me-up after the exhausting mess that was the Sandy Shores standoff with the Super Shimada Brothers and her girlfriend, flicking on the radio to Non-Stop Pop FM for some background noise. Fareeha vanished into her room with the wireless house phone playing back a message from “the artist currently known as D.Va”, rummaging about for any possible notes left to complement the answering machine, when the front door swung open.

“Ugh, thank _fuck_ for home.”

Hana stomped into the house, feeling the craving for junk food more glaringly than before to sate her aching ego. What a shitty house party. Well, it wasn’t really _that_ shitty (a whole lot of hot people, even if they weren’t a sixteenth as interesting as her one **_major_** encounter a couple days back) but yeesh, so much for trying to get with that cutie from Lúcio’s class; Hana’s ego got taken down so many notches in that meeting that she felt like her ribs (which should’ve been considered cool bragging points, not reckless idiot points, dumbass crush) had been unceremoniously cracked all over again. Fareeha at least was around; judging by the car outside, so if anyone was gonna get the first earful, it was her.

She kicked off her shoes and ambled into the kitchen “Hey eomma! Hope you’re alright after your lil adventure! I didn’t do much, just went to a fucking garbage howhat the fuck you are white as the pure driven snow.”

Angela stared in utterly bewildered silence. Hana stared right back. The coffee machine dinged as it finished its process.

“Who in the fuck are you.”

“Oh, uh, I’m Angela. You must be Hana, right?” Was this the same Hana that Satya and Fareeha were talking about? Surely, if she’s living here with the Egyptian—that kind of had to narrow it down. Still this was an… unusual choice for the surgeon to have knowingly made, although given her track record (sparse and secret for the most part unless Mei managed to coax it out of her which was a **_rarity_** no less) it’s not like Angela could really astutely say that either--.

“If you don’t tell me where eomma is I’m gonna scream.”

“N-no don’t scream, who’s Eomma?” Angela asked, holding her hands outward as if trying to calm an agitated and very large animal, brought right out of her mental tangent so sharply like she had just been slapped “I don’t know who you’re talking abou—.”

“ ** _EOMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH_**!!”

Fareeha burst through the door looking like she was ready to put her fists through someone’s head, stopping short when she saw Hana beaming at her with all of the innocence that Fareeha _knew_ she did not have. She looked at the frazzled Angela, grasping her mug of coffee like it was her only anchor to sense and coherency, hunched over like she was trying to will herself out of sight, and then back at the gamer who was completely unfazed. Her fight-ready stance immediately dropped with an annoyed look “Can I help you Hana?”

“Yeah, who the fuck’s this?”

“That’s Angela.”

“Yeah I got that name thing but like _whooooo_ is she?” Hana stressed, gesturing towards the doctor with stretched out arms, lightly waving them about in her direction in a vaguely circular manner “Like, is she a buddy? Fuckbuddy?? Distant white-ass relative? Like dude she is whiter than milk or those losers from Chumash who try to rap on Fame or Shame and they are whiter than the tanlines on a sunburnt redneck--.”

“No relation, and not just FWB either, Hana,” Fareeha clarified before the comparisons could go on, furrowing her brow “This is my girlfriend, Dr Angela Ziegler.”

“Oh right.” Hana perked up almost immediately, eyes flying wide open “ ** _WHAT!?_** What about Mercy though!? What happened to that sordid tale of lust in Los Santos?”

Angela finally relaxed enough to stand more upright and titter, smiling wryly with a knowing sideward look at Fareeha as she sought to subtly gain some ground in this conversation “Mercy’s fine with it.”

Hana swung around to her raising one thin eyebrow alarmingly high up her forehead in astonishment “The _fuck_ you say?”

“You see, I’m Mercy on my days off.”

Hana looked at Fareeha, who gave her a wide grin that made her the spitting image of the roguish one-eyed Ana, and instead of cracking a crass joke—or even one about being just like her crazy mom in subtler ways (and she had previously dismissed them as being too different, now not so much), she slumped with a defeated hunch in the direction of her room “Well I’m glad things looked up crazy good for you in this whole part o’life.”

“Whoa, whoa, hey, what’s up?” the pilot followed, gently catching her shoulder to prompt the girl to turn around towards her, genuinely concerned at the way Hana uncharacteristically deflated in one go “What’s the matter?”

“I tried to ask out a cute girl in university at this house party and got turned the fuck down. It sucked, felt like I got punched with the embodiment of a sign saying ‘you just got dropped from glitch.tv partnership’ and shit.”

“What about Satya?” Fareeha asked bluntly, seeming confused. Angela shook her head and drifted over, offering a far more sympathetic face as Hana just scoffed at the idea. Her posture was far less becoming of her usual livewire self, curled in and reclusive, quiet and restrained. Even if the Swiss woman had only heard about Hana before this, she was far more sensitive to how people carried themselves, and this she could tell was not a normal instance.

“What _about_ her? She’s way out of my league and like, yeah that fling was _out of this fucking **world**_ , but I don’t think she’s got like, any lasting interest. Why would she anyway? I’m just a university student moonlighting as a glitch streamer, and she’s a fucking _surgeon_. Made for life, n’ shit.”

“This sounds familiar,” Angela mused with a knowing smirk. Fareeha wilted by sheer word alone, feeling untold embarrassment for her past self in that moment. The doctor set the mug on the kitchen island, folding her arms loosely “Did you like this girl from university long?”

“I ain’t telling you shit,” Hana retorted, visibly wary of Angela. “Don’t know you, even if you’re Mercy and that in itself’s pretty amazing.”

“Even if I went out to get Burger Shot for you?”

“That is _bribery_ ,” she blinked, narrowing her eyes “And a quack really buying me junk food?”

“ **Hana** ,” Fareeha muttered, with a serious edge in her voice, not appreciating this standoffish manner that her roommate was taking on—bruised ego or not “Give her a chance.”

“Aight, aight, sorry. You don’t need to get me food, I’ll spill. Uh, so I kinda liked that girl from a distance for the last few months I guess…?” the gamer replied cautiously, conceding her hesitance “Like she’s one o’those girls who’s nice to everybody and really pretty--.”

“Do you know what she’s like?” Angela asked, stroking her chin “Personality-wise, I mean, if you had a chance to grab a glimpse of that. Do your interests align?”

“Only at the party, and… well…” Hana thought about it, falling silent. It was strange territory for Fareeha to see her actually concentrating so much her face even showed it. She treasured the moment in a way, leaning against the fridge and watching the discussion. “Huh, she never seemed interested in videogames, she's some Liberty City import who has half of the class fawning over her while she yells about the 'bourgeoisie' or whatever, and I mean, she turned me down cos she said I was a reckless idiot with no chill. Ugh, I hope she likes that weirdo from the Vineyard following her around like a lovesick puppy instead.”

“So you didn’t have much in common to begin with,” the blonde tilted her head forward as if peering over glasses that weren’t there “Is that so much of a big deal? You mightn’t have gotten along with her even if she reciprocated. You might’ve dodged a bullet.”

“Huh. That’s, yeah actually I guess you’re right.” Hana idly rubbed her neck, staring off to the side into space, noting the sore ego had mended itself a little upon the realisation. “You ain’t so bad doc. Mmmmaybe you can be eomma number 2 if you play your cards right.”

“Oh, I pass the test?” Angela chuckled, plucking her coffee back up for a quick sip and looking over at Fareeha with a smile curling her lips “Schätzli, I think the family’s accepting me.”

The pilot quirked her brow, filing a note to ask her what that term was away for later, glancing over at the gamer “You know, I didn’t realise you were trying to get with someone from your university. Just thought you were Satyasexual or something.”

Angela snorted, turning away what with coffee halfway up her nose and down her oesophagus, coughing loudly and heavily as Hana gave the chuckling Fareeha a dim look. “ _Really_?”

“I distinctly remember you asking me if she wouldn’t mind clawing up your back ‘if you know what I mean’, and later for me to wingman in relation to her. I was genuinely a witness for both occasions, so I’m wondering how you put those incidents out of your mind,” the Egyptian answered, waving her index finger around as she recalled the two moments “Hell, you already _have_ slept with her so I almost wanna ask if she _did_ claw your back up like you wanted.”

“ _Fuck **yes** she did_ , it was incredible, I barely slept that night and I can’t stop thinking about it when my brain has a second where it’s blank but that ain’t here nor there—.”

“What do you _mean_ that’s not here nor there?!”

Angela coughed again, at least capable of speaking albeit peppered with little harrumphs as she attempted to fully clear her throat “Look, Hana, never mind that girl. Let’s go back to that part where you said you don’t think Satya would be interested in you beyond a one night stand. I understand your feelings that you might not think you’re at her level or whichever, but you’d be surprised.”

“Wait, _what!?_ ” both Hana and Fareeha chorused as they spun around to face the doctor with varying looks of bewilderment.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” the blonde added, inwardly amused at how similar the two very different and absolutely unrelated women were in that moment, as she set the now lukewarm coffee down “Satya’s relationship history from what I know mostly amounts to one-offs that’re almost like business agreements. Never really recounts it, just kind of something to scratch the primal itch. I think she’s well overdue for a situation that’s a bit more fun and a bit more emotionally rewarding.”

Fareeha tilted her head. That was probably the most accurate statement she had heard about the surgeon’s approach to intimacy—the one before Hana was this rather surly Japanese man and just as quickly as he had been brought up he was never mentioned again. She didn’t even remember a name being mentioned, hell Satya probably didn’t even know it either. Actually, now that she thought of the description Satya once gave her, the pilot had a hunch she had seen him recently, but where…? She didn’t extrapolate on that too much longer, when Hana eventually managed to muster speech again.

“…Y’think she’d get that with me?” She hadn’t heard her so quiet before—last time that the gamer was anywhere near this muted, it was their first meeting after the robbery attempt on the Ltd gas station.

“She likes the idea of matchmaking people—albeit in strange, strange roundabout manners—that I think she might have forgotten to take care of herself in such a situation,” Angela said, her head tilted slightly, blowing the stray blonde lock of hair out of her face “I’d like her to experience how good it can be for herself.”

“You not going to tell Mei then?” Fareeha pondered aloud.

“Oh, Mei knows and she agrees. We’re on the same page about this, and considering Mei’s relayed me info where she swore she heard Satya mention how _charmed_ she was by Fareeha’s roommate--.”

The Korean straightened up instantly, her eyes the size of saucers as she stared at Angela “Are you fuckin’ serious?! Does she like me??”

“We’ll put in a good word for you,” the Swiss woman beamed, walking over and gently nudging Hana’s shoulder with a closed fist “Go get her, tigerli!”

 _Well_ , Fareeha inwardly reckoned as she watched Hana roar a ‘hell yeah’ as Angela cheered her on, _this was better than Hana glaring daggers at her while she’s here—and one way to turn the tables on old Matchmaker Vaswani_. The mere idea of even getting one up on Satya like this was such a foreign notion that it almost scared her a little, but between Angela and Hana, it looked like Fareeha might finally be the smug half of their vitriolic friendship for a change.

* * *

Amid seagull cries and the chatter of tourists, surfers, marijuana connoisseurs and locals alike, the phone added its own track to the Vespucci sound, drawing Ana over with reluctance and a gaping yawn to boot. “Yes?”

“ _Ana_.”

The timbre of this man’s voice was scratchy, so much that the old sniper felt like it was sloughing her ears, deeper and booming in echo, pushing it right into her brain almost. And yet, through it all, it was familiar, the worst kind of familiar.

“Who is this?” she asked, even though she knew his name-- the name belonging to the caller revealed by old memories she wished she never had to touch again.

“ _You know who this is, Amari_.”

Reluctantly she put a name to the voice “…Reyes.”

“ _Yes, yes, good to know your brain hasn’t turned to mush, yet_.” There was a horrid, guttural laugh full of scorn and decades of bitterness “ _You know you’re living on borrowed time for what you all did_.”

“ _I thought you were dead_ ,” Ana murmured, her heart hardening as a dreadful chill coursed through her blood “This is not the future I thought lay in store for us after the Vice City incident--.”

“ ** _Enough_** ,” Reyes snarled, his voice rising in volume to shout her down “ _I’m going to clean up every last scrap of Merryweather, starting with you, you fucking **turncoat**. Watch your damn back, Amari, the way you **never** watched mine!_”

“Please, it doesn’t have to be like this Reyes--!” The phone call dropped, a dull tone now in place rather than venomous growls filtering into Ana’s ear. She sighed, setting the phone down on the small table and hunching over, feeling her 60 years of age in every last tendon, muscle and bone in her body. There was a polite knock at the door.

“Nan? You awright?”

Ana let in Jamison and Mako, her expression blank to prevent any of the inner turmoil surfacing, but in spite of that the two men were more than astute enough to perceive something was terribly wrong.

“Never seen you with that kind of face,” the gas-masked Mako rumbled, idly scratching his lower back “Not even when we were bailing your daughter out.”

“I’m not afraid of the Shimada—I’ve even less reason to be so when they kowtow to Fareeha’s partner of _all_ people—but it’s old secrets of my past that do, ones that threaten to catch up to the present and destroy my future.” Ana hobbled to the sofa, sitting down and running her thin hands through snow-white hair out of its typical braid “I thought I could just about evade him but… I suppose I haven’t really been too careful to do so.”

“Evade who? Who’s king cunt on the list of fuckers we need t’get rid of?” Jamison asked; his narrow face contorted into annoyance at this phantom threat.

“You don’t need to get involved, either of you,” the weary Egyptian replied with a shake of her head. The junkers looked at each other, before turning back to face her again. Ana continued “This is something I need to take care of. There doesn’t need to be any more potential collateral than there already is, you boys have plenty to live for beyond this old lady. I… I just have to make sure that this man doesn’t take his revenge on anyone else but me.”

She stood up, straightening her posture and becoming a bit more like the Ana Amari the men were used to seeing “I want you both to lay low—try to keep separate from me for the moment. If I finish this, I’ll let you know when it’s safe. If not… well, you’ll know what happened to me.”

“What? We can’t let you just--!” the man also known as Roadhog blurted back, the first time either of the other two had witnessed him being moved to such agitation. Ana shook her head with a sad smile and pat his arm gently.

“I’m touched, Mako, but this old mercenary has loose ends she must tie up, one way or another.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of the Shimada frying pan and into the Merryweather-related fire, is where the plot's heading. But at least the birdfam is now sort of together.  
> Will it help when Gabriel 'Reaper' Reyes comes after em? Will he even come after em? Next chapter you'll find out since shit is getting so real either way.
> 
> edit: Hana "The Fuck You Say?" Song quoting the most uttered reply in Saints Row 2 has me hankering to play that game. If this AU was more Saints Row than GTA she probably wouldn't get so owned all of the time.


	18. Denied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pleasant day out turns grim.

The news said a storm was due to roll in, but the public could be forgiven for thinking the weatherman had lied grievously—not just because of previous scandal to do with one particular Weazel News meteorologist—as the sun seemed brighter than usual in spite of the forecasted gloomy weather, bathing Portola Drive in bright light, reflecting off the steel equestrian statue brilliantly.

The Rockford Hills shopping area was bustling, but thanks to the wide pavements, nothing felt too busy or frustrating to get around, as Fareeha walked with not only Angela, but Hana too in tow. The idea was more so a day out, but barely an hour in and there was already some form of incident. Thankfully, Fareeha did see the funny side of it a few minutes removed from the head of the situation “I can’t believe I had to physically pry you from the corner of that electronics store.”

Angela quipped with a skip in her step “Glad we didn’t need a crowbar.”

“Hey, they were having a sale,” Hana huffed, nonchalantly stuffing her face with chips. “So sue me. But don’t, please. I don’t have that kinda dollar.”

 

* * *

 

In the middle of a Downtown traffic jam, a respectable looking vehicle with tinted windows trailed patiently towards Rockford.

 

* * *

 

The noise of traffic and the occasional exchange of pissy words between passersby across the road filled the air in the comfortable lull between all three, as Angela squinted at a wall of muscle barely contained by spanx approaching them, with a sprig of bright pink on top of the wall’s head, with a tiny stocky woman strutting beside her. Both parties identified each other roughly about the same time.

“Angie!” Mei squealed, thundering ahead, colliding with Angela at top speed completely winding her. “I haven’t seen you in ages, how are you!??!?”

The Swiss woman wheezed silently in lieu of an actual response, as she slowly keeled over from where Mei’s shoulder had embedded itself in her chest. Fareeha blinked, prying herself from her frozen state as she realised Zarya was with the rambunctious climatologist, moving to haul Angela back up “Oh, shit. Zaryanova it’s been a while for sure. Fancy this, a reunion all around.”

“An introduction in the making, too!” the Russian bouncer chuckled, nodding towards Hana who stood upright and at attention “Is this your roommate? The very same _dorogoi_ has been telling me about?”

 

* * *

 

“ _Aight ol’ man, you’re two blocks away from Fareeha Amari. With luck, she’ll be leading you right up to the sniper Cyclops_.”

 

* * *

 

Hana was staring at Zarya with unbridled, raw wonderment, something the brawny woman noticed with ease and pat the girl’s shoulder, making her buckle slightly under the force of it “Ah, all this takes is dedication and hard work! You have the same within you; this much I am sure of. But you seem to have something extra unique than simple focus, if even Satya has mentioned you in her day-to-day life!”

“But like, in what way!?” the gamer suddenly blurted out, thirsting to know the context (in multiple senses of the term) and getting a _mite_ frustrated that everyone was being so fucking incredibly evasive about it. “Does she wanna fuck me again? Does she wanna make it more than just the most incredible once-off lay that’ll grace my dumb self? Does she never wanna see me again!? Like, dude come ON! Lack of context fucking _kills_!”

“I don’t think you have to worry even a little about the possibility of a negative thought coming from her,” Angela helpfully mentioned with a wiggle of her brows as Zarya applauded with a merry laugh the blatant honesty just pouring like a fountain from Hana. Fareeha just opted to stare with a raised brow after the particular choice of words the gamer used in her spiel.

 

* * *

 

“Your choice of rifle is interesting, Lacroix. The ‘ _White Death_ ’s favourite?” the hooded, masked man rumbled, weaving into the correct lane to turn “Do explain. You usually opt for modern pieces.”

“The M/28-30 variant of Mosin-Nagant is iron-sighted only,” Amélie began, glancing at the long rectangular case in the back seat “Anything with a scope, I cannot use. Ana is adept enough to spot the sun glinting off of any such thing and react. Iron sights will make the difference between success and failure.”

“Your will to do the job is a variable too.”

She bit her tongue, glowering ahead.

Reyes changed topic, surprisingly, given he just loved to rub her failure in more often than not “Look out on the left, just a block ahead. Is that them?”

Amélie squinted slightly, putting her superior vision to good use, making out the shape of an older Fareeha from what she remembered. She was with a blonde woman who was loosely holding hands with her, and a girl who was clearly a student of some form, all larking around with a bodybuilder and a chubby bespectacled brunette. Even with the distance, she could tell it was the same Amari she had met all those years ago aiming for the skies and finding her wings as a pilot-in-training, albeit more powerfully built, recalling the time with sadness. “That’s her alright.”

 

* * *

 

“You know what Hana? I ask Satya a bunch about all those things too!” Mei beamed, mischievously giggling behind her hand “But she never really answers, and like Angie said, nothing negative there. _Lady Vaswani_ likes appearing to be more mysterious than she really is.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Fareeha grumbled.

“Look,” the climatologist began, grabbing Hana’s hands and giving her a look of determination “You’re already lightyears ahead of the rest of her previous partners given that you come up in conversation without trying! That’s a really good sign; normally she just kind of rides n’ byes--”

Angela snorted, Fareeha rolled her eyes, Hana blushed furiously; _what a particular term to use_. “--so I’ll give you some tips to make it something more than a one-off bang, okay? I mean, Fareeha is nice and probably a really good influence, but she’s very bad at noticing subtle things you see and romance is not her mentoring forté--.”

“Uh, Mei that’s a great idea but,” the pilot interrupted sheepishly, trying to ignore Zarya’s amused giggle and gentle elbow nudge at her expense “We’re actually supposed to meet my mother at the Little Teapot up in Vinewood in the next 15 minutes. You’re gonna need much more than that to help Hana out.”

“Oh fuck you,” Hana retorted, elbowing her in the gut, her attempt bonier and smaller than Zarya’s large beefy arm “Took you how long to realise that nice blonde lady was the stripper you railed twice before?”

“ ** _Hana_**! That is _beside_ the point!”

“Yeah, I bet Ana has a lot of tales that you can draw from instead of Fareeha here,” Mei smirked, enough to garner a reaction from Angela, suddenly spurring the doctor to life.

“Mei, another time,” her friend abruptly interjected, linking arms with both Fareeha and Hana and whisking them away northbound. Fareeha wondered how much Mei heard of Ana’s stories—presumably passed to her by Satya—while Angela wondered if Mei joined the dots between those and her own torrid history, praying that it wasn’t the case. Hana just wondered if she could ever get as ripped as Zarya—if not in bulk, then at least lean, mean and almost-worth-grating-cheese-on-her-abs machine.

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure you should be driving?” Amélie peered through the windscreen, watching the Amaris part ways with the couple, and amble up the sidewalk some 500 metres away, oblivious to the sleek Enus Cognoscenti that had been following from afar. Reyes grumbled, gloved hands tightening around the wheel. “The mask, I mean, does this not impede you driving?”

“I know these streets like the back of my hand, Lacroix.”

“You’ve been out of the state for almost half a decade; are you sure?”

“Any more wisecracks like that and I’m going to paint the street with your organs.”

Amélie was silent once more.

 

* * *

 

After waiting for about 20 or so minutes, Ana frowned, squinting down at the trio approaching the quiet little café on a bustling intersection corner, before her face creased into a broad grin upon recognising the small contingent. She opened her arms up with a haggard chuckle “You kept an old woman like me waiting so long?”

She received three different pointed glares, all communicating the same idea that, for as much as she liked to whine about being six decades old, she had demonstrated that age was merely a number and her energy belied her wisdom in a number of ways; managing to get all three of them in some kind of situation that they needed to wriggle out of. Knowing this, Ana’s grin turned extremely sheepish as it sunk in, lowering her arms.

“Ah, I suppose I should rescind that remark, what with the last month or so.”

“Yes,” Fareeha sighed as exasperation ruled her posture, tone and expression alike “You should.”

“Apologies and explanations are in order, I promise. I’ve got a table booked inside, so go on in—oh, little hare; their baked goods are all done in their kitchen, fresh out of the oven. I highly recommend them-- think you’ll like the frosted blueberry ones.”

“Fucking _sweet_ , halmeoni! Thank you!!” Hana beamed as she raced inside.

Angela was about to follow in, smiling at the enthusiasm, until she felt Ana’s wiry hand grip around her wrist, halting her. It took perhaps a couple of seconds too long to make eye contact, as if expecting the Ana she had met in her proto-Mercy years to suddenly recall her and reappear to tear her newfound domesticity asunder.

“Angela, their coffee is delightfully strong. Far better than the nonsense the hipster chain stores tout—I think you will like it, if you enjoy coffee! There is a man inside who can even mimic the process that you’d find more common in Cairo rather than Bean Machine. Have a cup on me—oh, and don’t worry about this, I’m not going to interrogate you about my little bird, she is an adult after all.”

But here, all she saw as an excited old lady eager to benignly share in the simpler pleasures of life, so at least Angela was assured that particular episode was long relegated to the past. Acknowledging the suggestion with an enthusiastic nod, she joined Hana inside the Little Teapot café.

 

* * *

 

Reyes’ phone rang briefly, Sombra’s grinning face displaying on the screen.

“ _Ey pops, is the phone tracker showing up?_ ”

“Yes, good work planting it on Fareeha’s phone. Your hunch proved fruitful to bug the daughter so that she’d lead us to Ana. They look like they’re going to go to that café, so we’re about to set up.”

“ _Cool, well I can confirm that they are, thanks to the bug y’know, so you can go right ahead. I’m keepin’ an eye on you guys. If the feds start swarming I’ll tell you where to go_.”

 

* * *

 

“Little bird, a moment,” Ana murmured, arm held across to gently tug her daughter from entering the Little Teapot café and following Angela inside, coaxing Fareeha to turn to face her “I need to say something to you.”

“Did I do something?” the pilot sighed, exasperation prematurely descending on her words “It’s barely been 15 minutes.”

“It’s nothing like that. Merely that… well I’m sure you’d like some questions answered about my past in that security firm or whichever way I described it to you as.”

 

* * *

 

Amélie and Reyes had climbed atop the nearby and tastelessly named ‘Floor Skin’ store across the street, the iron sighted rifle sitting just perched out of sight against the lip of the roof. Their target was facing away, with her daughter facing their direction though mercifully focused on Ana. Reyes peered through binoculars and scoped out the vicinity “No one’s watching. No one even noticed us slip by to get up here; too many daytime drunks on Vinewood Boulevard. There’s no crosswind. You’ve got a clear shot in another… 12 seconds. Line it up, Lacroix.”

With a heavy gulp of air, Amélie steadied the old World War era rifle against her body, peering down the barrel, finger curling around the trigger as she focused on the back of Ana’s head.

 

* * *

 

Fareeha blinked, baffled. What happened to make her mother change her mind about this? Well, obviously the way things had been going the last few weeks couldn’t have helped, but she never seemed _that_ wholly affected by it. Looks like she was going to finally get some answers “…Yes, I’d like to know what it was.”

“Reinhardt’s inside too. There’s quite a few things we need to tell you about,” Ana chuckled ruefully, a dull tint to her eye, moving around Fareeha and opening the glass door to slip into the building.

 

* * *

 

Amélie swallowed, and pulled the trigger.

She was two seconds too late.

 

* * *

 

There was a crack in the air, like that of gunshot? Usually no one was that trigger happy in the touristy part of Los Santos, more fixed to the eastern end of the city. But just as she noticed the sound, Fareeha stumbled.

She gasped with significant difficulty, brow furrowing instantly as a dull thump to her midsection forced her to stagger until she hit her back off of the large glass window, bouncing off of it once before settling against it uneasily. The sensation wasn’t unlike a pointed shove—if the person shoving had what felt like a hydraulic arm pinpointed into her ribs. It felt like one half of her ribcage was being firmly pushed in from the corner, and breathing became curiously arduous with every millisecond.

The pilot clutched desperately at the spot that erupted into a strange, deep pain, feeling something very warm and wet right around where her chest seemed to gurgle. Glancing downwards, her hand was glistening red, and her tanktop was soaked in blood that seemed to keep trickling through. Something metallic was filling her throat, forcing her to cough and the same tint of crimson spattered lightly on the stone, as black crept in around the corners of her eyes, hemming in her vision. It felt like minutes, but the reality was mere seconds had passed.

Sliding down against the wall-sized window with a horrid screech as skin and fabric alike slick with claret slipped by glass, Fareeha was faintly aware of her mother and the others bursting through the door as she wondered who the hell it was that could have shot her. Hana was screaming and screaming, her mother was fussing over the blood and perhaps trying to contain the situation as she could, trying to talk to her and keep her attention, Angela she couldn’t see. Fareeha was vaguely aware of Reinhardt’s massive arms tenderly picking her up from the ground, the chaotic din fading to a dull murmur when her senses turned off.

 

* * *

 

Reyes’ heavy hand shook the quivering Amélie with a jolt, the pressure just enough to pulse pain through her panic-wracked body. He leaned in uncomfortably close, the unchanging mask radiating venom “I will see you at the rendezvous point at the dock for debriefing.”

Her throat was dry, speech deserted her. She had failed him twice now.

 

* * *

 

“ ** _Hana!_** Call the emergency services!” Ana roared, hastily applying a self-made tourniquet from the edge of her heavy jacket, to prevent her daughter from bleeding out all over the street, but she couldn’t do much for what was assuredly internal bleeding. Fareeha looked so desperately small and broken in Reinhardt’s colossal, shell-shocked but heartbreakingly gentle arms, her eyes staring up at the sky glassily, expression blank save for furrowed brows, blurting blood from her lips with every sickeningly wet cough until she lay far too motionless. Ana’s hands shook, but thankfully Reinhardt’s held so carefully still, as she worked to the bone to try and save their daughter; the realisation, that the worst that she had spent almost half of her life trying to prevent had just occurred, never quite reaching her brain—not when she had the sliver of a chance to delay it long enough for help to arrive.

As for Hana, the gamer diligently did as Ana furiously asked, dialling 911 with trembling fingers and through gulping hysterical sobs cried “Someone’s been shot outside the Little Teapot on South Boulevard Del Perro—send an ambulance; please come quick, _please!_ ” She almost dropped her phone trying to put it back in her pocket, shaking uncontrollably as she prayed and pleaded with whatever higher power existed not to take away her eomma just when things were looking up, just as she felt like she could not only fit into this city but fit into this crazy family. All Hana could do was bury her face in shell-shocked Reinhardt’s massive shoulder and cry.

Angela was gone. In seconds she had deduced where the shot had come from, and was following it despite her brain screaming at her with textbook survival instinct 101 to _not_ run in the direction of where a gun was. She had spotted a woman on the roof of the Floor Skin store with a rifle in hand, and all she knew was wrath. A grateful thought was spared for her past self opting to wear comfortable shoes, as cars swerved all around her with horns adding to the cacophony of chaos while she bolted towards the side streets.

Just as she made it up the slight incline to the rear of the store in question, Angela turned and made eye contact with the guilty party, rifle presumably in the rectangular bag on her back. A moment hung between the two, where abject horror met barely contained fury, and the assassin turned and fled. The doctor gave chase across two intersections onto Eastbourne Avenue, ignorant to her legs already getting pushed to their running limit, until the woman climbed onto a motorbike—she only had seconds to find something equally as powerful or there was no hope of pursuing the would-be murderer. Angela looked to her left at the small parking space beside her, where a man was trying to ignore the women running after each other and get ready to leave on his own motorcycle.

 _She had lessons, so… here goes nothing_.

“Sorry, I’ll return this when I can!” she yelled, swinging her right fist with all of her Alpine might into his face. The shock did more to dislodge him rather than the hit itself, dropping his helmet as he lay on the tarmac, stunned. Angela hurriedly jammed the helm on her head, ignoring her pained knuckles and revved up the Bati, bolting through the traffic on Hawick Ave down into the nest of skyscrapers of Pillbox Hill after the assassin.

All throughout, she kept her eyes firmly focused on the motorcycle ahead of her, bearing her target of pursuit away—to where, she’d find out. Angela winced as the woman ploughed through an unfortunate and extremely unlucky civilian who had the audacity to cross the road when the signal told him to, hoping the paramedics would be en route while she took care of this priority issue. The high-speed path took the chase through Strawberry (where the Vanilla Unicorn was, but all things considered, it was the last thing Angela wanted to think about right now) and into Chamberlain, where the usual animosity between the Ballas and the Families—limited to posturing across the street in their banners of green and purple—had taken an unexpected truce just to gawk at the motorcycles screaming by them.

It seemed the assassin was looking to dead end on the docks of Elysian, judging by where the route had gone through the suburbs of Davis and Rancho in the eastern part of the city, which suited Angela just fine if that meant she could corner her. The bikes crossed the bridge, weaving between confused and annoyed commuters, into the heart of Elysian Island.

Rows and rows of warehouses unfolded along the Pacific edge of the island, with dozens of stacks of shipping containers scattered between them. It took about 5 warehouses down the street for the gunwoman to swing left into a snug alcove afforded by the particular way the containers had been stacked against the specific warehouse she chose. Angela followed, and despite the woman’s intentions to keep running, the doctor put a stop to that by bodily flinging herself into her, tackling her to the ground.

“Who are you!? _Why did you do it? **Why did you shoot her!?**_ ” Angela shouted, struggling against her, not quite strong enough to completely pin her down. It didn’t take too long for her to be thrown back off; allowing the assassin to stand, but it seemed the woman had changed her mind on escaping. She was tall, elegant looking even through a scowl that seemed curiously sad.

“She wasn’t my target,” was the simple reply, coupled with the ghost of a shrug. The reply served naught but further enraging Angela, striding up towards her and grabbing her by the collar, glaring angrily into cold grey eyes as she pushed her against a shipping container with an echoed clang.

“Your _target?_ Who were you supposed to hit, then?!”

The woman shoved her off with a dismissive sigh, as if she didn’t care for the interrogation “Ana Amari.”

“Wh-.” Angela wasn’t expecting such frank answers—hell she wasn’t expecting answers _at all_ — stepping back and staring wide-eyed. “Then who put you up to this? Who’d want her dead?”

There was a sound of a gunfire blast not too far away. A shotgun round had been unloaded, the assassin noted with wide eyes, overbright and fearful as to the owner of the weapon when the bullet chewed through clothing and flesh with horrid ease. Angela never noticed the shock on the assassin’s face, crumpling to the ground with a shriek of agony as her knees seared in white-hot pain collapsing beneath her.

“Well, well, well,” a voice rumbled with bitter amusement from behind them. “I come here to debrief Lacroix and find she’s brought with her someone I’ve been keen on seeing again for years. Maybe I’m not so disappointed in you, _Amélie_.”

“Reyes, don’t,” the woman—Amélie Lacroix—murmured, staring on as Angela sobbed, clutching at her now useless legs from the knee down, writhing as blood lazily soaked her jeans and the patchy concrete path below, noting with cold dread how the blonde quietly pleaded for it to be anyone, _anyone else_ , but Gabriel Reyes “She’s not the target either.”

“I should be saying that to _you_ ,” he snarled, walking towards the incapacitated doctor and placing his foot on the back of a leg left lacerated with the blast of shotgun shells, amusing himself with Angela’s agonised howl as she begged for clemency, fingers scrabbling at the dirt uselessly “Fareeha wasn’t the fucking target, but here we are. Collateral is fair game judging by your example, but you should also know that the doctor here isn’t just any old quack either.”

Reyes flipped the blonde onto her back with his foot with careless ease, placing his sawn off shotgun in a custom holster around his thigh “Isn’t this nice, Dr Ziegler? A lovely little reunion between patient and practitioner, where you can see the _fucking **mess**_ you made of me!”

And for the first time since Amélie had ever met him, Reyes removed his mask.

There was a gnarled void where an eyeball would normally be, and the absence of a nose gave him the look of a skull, with his mouth badly scarred in a direction that lent credence to Amélie’s immediately formed theory that a single devastating blow did all of this damage in one go. The man was grotesque, so it was little wonder he hid his face; but the doctor wilfully doing this seemed hard to believe for her.

“Look at me, doc ** _. Look at me._** ”

Angela had to, especially once Reyes knelt down and grabbed her reddened face streaming with tears, her gulping sobs and pained cries hushed into a petrified silence staring at her tormentor. Of course, _she_ had remembered events differently up in North Yankton, where fate decreed she would spend some time in residency before Los Santos beckoned once more. She remembered that anaesthesia just wasn’t working on him as he fought the team of medical staff trying to keep him still, so she could take bullets out and stitch his organs back together. She remembered the same violent grip that he was using right now, except it was firmly on her neck until three nurses were able to pry him off. They did what they could, but she wasn’t ready for anything like facial reconstruction, not for years until the Shimada came calling, and her saviour was Satya then—her guidance not only saved Genji, but assuredly saved Angela from the wrath of their yakuza. The Shimada owed Angela, but Angela owed Satya. All she could’ve done for Gabriel Reyes was make sure his guts didn’t leak from his torso or his brain from his skull, and to that end she managed and saved his life, but Reyes determined her efforts to be a complete failure when he couldn’t leave his safehouse without a mask.

“Now why on earth were you mingling with Ana?” he asked spitefully, placing the mask back on and standing upright. When the Swiss woman gave him no response, simply whimpering as she could feel her own blood staining her clothes and her shins going numb, he swung a firm kick into her side. “I’m afraid I don’t take _silence_ for a fucking answer.”

“Reyes,” Amélie interjected quickly over Angela’s yelp, before he could take out his resentment any more “Earlier today—from the car—did you not see how she was with Fareeha? I can safely assume they’re together romantically. That must be how she knows Ana.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he growled, gesticulating wildly and stamping towards her like he was fully intending to swipe at Amélie herself “It’s like I can’t get away from her, but just as well. If only you didn’t know her so well that you could put her _the fuck_ away instead of just gouging out her goddamn eye!”

An arrow embedded itself far, far too close to Reyes’ waving arm. He spun around, then in the direction from whence it came, to see a fleet of black and green jeeps charging down the road towards them. “Are you _kidding_ me? Bastards, you’re getting nothing but a doctor’s corpse to bury—!”

“There is _no time_ to be petty Reyes!” Amélie shouted over him, swallowing her usual fear and grabbing him by the arm, hoping he’d take it in so that Angela could be spared “We escape, or you can say goodbye to the thought of revenge on Merryweather!”

Reyes said nothing, rumbling in anger as he wordlessly accepted Lacroix’s wisdom in this particular situation, running to where he had parked the Enus Cognoscenti with the sniper in tow. The Shimada fleet screeched to a halt at the spot where the two Talon mercs fled from, with the leading vehicle—emblazoned with two green circling dragons—opening up to let Hanzo and Genji out. Genji fired his submachine gun in their direction with a yell of righteous rage, the hail of bullets embedding into the side of the Enus as it sped away, while Hanzo hurried to the pool of blood that Angela lay in.

“Angela!” Hanzo roared, scooping her up easily into his arms, grimacing as blood soaked his hand and his clothes. She appeared to be unconscious (hopefully that was all as well); given the size of the red puddle on the ground and how violently crimson her jeans were, that was understandable, until he grazed by her horrid wounds and she shrieked in pain, her voice raw and hoarse from sobbing. “Genji, we need to get to a hospital as soon as possible. She’s badly hurt.”

He bundled her into the back of the jeep, trusting his brother to floor it to the nearest hospital. Hanzo pulled out the silk ribbon binding his hair up, wrapping it around both shattered knees in a paltry attempt to keep pressure on the shell wounds, trying not to wince as Angela began to weep heavily once more _. It’d have to do for the time being_ , he thought as he made a concerted effort to hold onto her through Genji’s erratic swerves through Los Santos rush hour traffic—in a bid to minimise anything that would aggravate the already horrific injuries, _they owed her_. The elder Shimada no doubt had questions about how exactly the good doctor was left in such a hideous state, but given how besotted Fareeha seemed with her, her absence seemed _very_ strange too. Questions would be answered regardless, once they got Angela to safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas
> 
> here's a cliffhanger


	19. Keep Your Friends Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Satya reflects on the sobering events, Hana gets a call from a not-quite ally. Plans are made.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been awake for, toiling for hours what felt like days on punctured lungs and shredded legs, nor was she sure how on earth she was given the go-ahead to lead the operating team to perform emergency surgery not just on Fareeha, but _Angela_ too who was wheeled in some time later. There were procedures in place to ensure practitioners would never treat their nearest and dearest, in case emotions clouded rational judgement and compromised the health of their patients; how was _she_ chosen?

Satya sat outside the operating theatre, hair perfectly pinned up and hidden under a cap and hairnet, facemask still firmly covering her nose and mouth, scrubs spattered with blood and latex gloves now a fetching shade of red held in one hand now free to shudder in peace what with its task of pinpoint precision being over with. She stared at the floor as the rest of the staff went about their duties albeit in a greater rush considering the recent admissions, her mind coaxing itself into standby in a bid to try and protect itself from completely shutting down. When she was due to return home to an empty house, no doubt she’d be asking herself why did this happen all at once, when it seemed fortunes were on the up for her friends who were now gravely injured and being slowly put back together merely rooms away from her. Why did this happen? How could it have happened when things were falling in place? Satya knew of her ability, she knew that she absolutely had the skills to bring them from the brink (Fareeha was so much closer to it than Angela, but it’s fixed now, she reminded herself quickly), but what of those who did this to her friends to begin with?

A plastic cup of water was held towards her. Following the tanned arm up to the owner’s face, she saw a face that she would’ve regarded any other day of the week as an annoying pest of a man.

“Hey, drink up. It’s not too cold but it’s a little cooler than room temp. Figured you might need some refreshment,” he murmured, nodding towards her. “You’ve had a hell of a day.”

Too tired to give him the usual icy treatment, Satya weakly accepted the offer, drinking down the water that certainly felt frostier than Lúcio’s original pitch. Just as the temperature clashed with that of her tongue, something clicked in her head, and she looked at him almost accusatorily “You… did you tamper with paperwork? There’s no way I’d be selected to oversee both of their surgeries.”

“Yeah, and?” he blinked, raising an eyebrow.

She reared back, as if stunned by how obviously bad of an idea it was to follow up on “You could’ve gotten yourself fired. Or worse, gotten _me_ fired! What got into your head to do this--?!”

“Hey, just maybe I wanted to make sure that the two eommas Hana’s texted me about don’t fucking **_die_**?” Lúcio snapped, standing his ground “Maybe that, knowing you’re literally the best possible medical professional for this job in the whole goddamn state, I wanted to give her peace of mind, and maybe you too! Would you really have let any of the other chucklefucks in this place near your buddy Fareeha or Dr Ziegler with a fucking scalpel? The one time this place isn’t thorough it works for me.”

Satya’s mouth swung open before her brain even had a response ready, spine upright and ready to challenge him when no challenge came to mind. She paused, thinking about it, realising that ultimately she did agree deep down—surprised that she didn’t feel annoyed at conceding ground to someone she’d normally label ‘an uppity idiot wastrel’ for a change. Her body relaxed, allowing itself to sag downwards and acquiesce “I suppose you’re right.”

Silence drifted in, between them, around them, draping lazily across as the hospital continued its day to day business down the hall from them.

“…how is Hana doing?” she eventually managed. Satya told herself she asked because she had seen Ana Amari genuinely sobbing by the operating theatre, a sight she had previously deemed impossible to ever come into existence given her nature, she heard Mei cry out in horror at the news over the phone, when the climatologist always had a glint in her eye and a joke to follow no matter what; she knew the most important reactions bar one.

Maybe she _was_ also a little worried about Hana, too, without her guardian pilot keeping her safe.

“Hana? She’s not… really doing great,” Lúcio admitted, patting his pocket where his cellphone (currently off) sat “I stepped out to call her a little while ago and see if she was gonna stream like she normally does round this hour, but… she just got shit for it cos she hasn’t been around as much, people getting real abusive, and she just lost it. I think she’s still holed up in the Amari house, just terrified and upset.”

She nodded mutely.

“But… if anything, hearing you were asking for her might help a little.”

“I’ll go one better,” Satya mumbled, unsure what was motivating her to do this right now other than the faint feeling that she wanted desperately to help in any way possible “She can stay with me until they’re both 100%. It can’t be any help being in Fareeha’s house, surrounded by her décor, her hearth and all those photos she’s so fond of.”

Lúcio looked like he wanted to suggest something else was lying undercurrent, but he held his tongue on that matter. “Y’know, that’s a good point. You want me to give her a heads up, or d’you wanna surprise her?”

Satya looked up at Lúcio, noting something hopeful was now hidden within his expression—for what reason she wasn’t sure—before averting her gaze just over his shoulder as if unable to maintain eye contact “…Does she like surprises?”

He couldn’t stop himself from smiling, albeit far more restrained than his usual fare “You bet. I’ll keep quiet. A surprise like this might mean the world of difference to her.”

“Then a surprise it’ll be,” Satya agreed quietly.

 

* * *

 

Some hours passed, as Hana struggled to play games offline that would hold her attention, swallowing down the surge of anxiety when the mere idea that anyone would glimpse her presence online dared filter through her mind, afraid of more torrents of abuse or worse—whoever hurt Fareeha and Angela possibly making her the third victim in line. She could barely stomach walking through the house, suddenly far more empty without the calming presence of her buff cool eomma lounging around or fixing herself one of those fucking amazing coffees with a slightly sugared one for her (Hana never liked coffee too much, too inundated with energy drinks, until Fareeha introduced her to the art of the roast coffee bean contrary to garbage from Bean Machine).

Even the photos were too much, especially now that more recent memories had been captured here and there when they hadn’t been swept into another insane adventure. She grimaced, finding her digital avatar stabbed through by the noble Dragonslayer’s spear and red ‘You Died’ text spilling across the screen. This was probably a bad series to play considering what was happening, even if it was marginally easier offline, especially when barely two hours after Fareeha was carted into hospital, Angela joined her in the ER unable to walk on legs embedded with shrapnel.

A phone started ringing. While a welcome distraction from the game over screen, the foreign ringtone made it far less reassuring; it wasn’t her phone buzzing after all, but rather Fareeha’s, in her care while she was laid up in the hospital recovering. Hana kept telling herself that she was _recovering_ , because Lúcio promised he’d get the best in to fix up her eomma and eomma number 2.

Reluctantly, Hana pulled herself away from her gaming battlestation and slid into the vast space doubling as a kitchen and living room alike, seeking the noise’s source as she desperately ignored all the photos of the patchwork family of sorts scattered around coffee tables and walls. Peering at the unknown number, she sighed and braced herself for some cold calling bullshit, not that she particularly wanted to talk to a fucking marketer right now “Helloooo?”

“ _Hey there. You definitely ain’t Fareeha Amari, huh?_ ”

“Who the fuck is this?” Hana asked, immediately suspicious when an unknown caller knew who she was looking for on the other end “ **Fuck** whatever you’re selling.”

“ _I ain’t selling shit but hard truths_ **bonita** ,” the voice chuckled, “ _I know you’re tryna get your degree in the arts to keep your parents back home happy, cos they don’t see your future in videogames or being some internet personality streaming, but you keep hoppin’ disciplines cos you dunno what you really want. What’s your class now, Architecture? Medicine? You’re not gonna be doin’ it in a semester’s time I bet.”_

“Real cute,” Hana growled, free hand curling into a fist “Why don’t you say that shit to my face?”

“ _You moved in with Fareeha Amari after a robbery that she got you out of alive, and you got involved in the Shimada truck highway chase fracturing your ribs thanks to her former mercenary of a mother, then you got squirrelled outta the cross promotional yacht tour that your sponsor’s rival brands were hosting by Fareeha again. You really good at getting yourself into trouble huh?_ ” her phone ‘companion’ pointed out with an ominous smile to her tone “ _I wonder, I heard you talk some nice talk about a hot surgeon lady; don’t think your parents would be keen on hearing this somehow judgin’ by your email exchanges. On top of living with a pilot and her stripper girlfriend—oh man, what a field day for conservative old fuckheads to drag your ass away. But hey, maybe you’d like to escape this too huh?_   _Maybe you **do** wanna get the fuck out to Busan before it can follow you there_.”

“Are you threatening me?” she asked, though the answer was obvious. Old worries she had long forgotten about since the gas station robbery, returned and made themselves comfortable in her gut like a most unwelcome guest, joining the cold dread of the extremely recent events in Los Santos. Hana hadn’t really spared much thought for her parents apart from the occasional email relating how she had been doing; if they knew any more than the carefully cultivated words she had cropped and changed to keep them appeased… “Who the fuck do you think you are!?”

“… _I’m not here to ruin your life. I actually got no interest in doin’ that. I just like knowing things y’see_ ,” the woman replied as if her shrug could be detected through her huff alone, though instead of continuing to sound supremely arrogant and smug, the dissonant forlorn sigh changed the tone of their conversation instantly “… _look, enough shit’s gone down. I’m fed up of it. I know the owner of this thing—an iFruit 8 I think right?— is all fucked up right now, but she wasn’t supposed to get hit. My benefactor wanted her mama to get on the wrong end of a bullet, but the person who did it—poor doll couldn’t make it happen n’ messed up. This basically wasn’t supposed to happen in any case--_.”

“Great, like _that_ makes me feel any better?!” Hana was suddenly _livid_ , the energy that would normally have found itself spiralling out into hearty sobs and torrential tears was now winding up like a coil of raw fury, wishing she had sight of this anonymous fuckwad “Someone who saved my life is in the fucking hospital just because she had the luck of standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Better yet, the other person who was supposed to apparently get fucking murdered is also someone I’m close to and really look up to—how the **_fuck_** do you think I’m going to feel when your dickhead boss wants to kill my family!?”

“ _Yeah, I don’t really know how that feels, and I sure as hell won’t try to pretend to_ ,” the woman conceded, actually seeming sympathetic. “ _Look, I’m just telling you this so all the middleman near-miss bullshit stops with that. My boss wants to just finish his old person shit with Ana Amari and the other two ancient fuckos. I kinda also did my best to convince him a lil bit cos I figure this would be in everyone’s interests._ ”

Was she being benevolent?

“ _So, this is what’s up. I’ll give you a number to contact to arrange this shit; I’ll text it after I hang up. Nothing you can trace to an address of course. Just to let these chucklefucks bury the hatchet either in the dirt or in each other and away from everyone else_.”

Maybe not. She was gone before Hana could chase her with more questions, leaving the gamer alone with the lone text bearing the vital message that she figured was destined for Ana. Her own phone shook with its own new text, as if jealous she was holding another and desperate for the attention. Flicking it off lock, the Korean peered at Lúcio’s text which just had a smiley face and ‘hope u enjoy ur surprise my dude!!’ whatever the hell he was talking about. Did he know what the hell was going on? Between Angela and Fareeha being shot up by two different fucking assholes and her being threatened and jeered at for not streaming because of it; what the hell surprise could fix this?

The doorbell rang this time rather than a phone, and Hana’s gut reaction was that Lúcio decided to order her a bunch of delivery pizza or something. Grumbling that she hated pranks like this to herself, she walked towards the door, stopping briefly when the latent fear that the people who shot both eomma 1 and 2 might like to add her to that list came to mind. She hesitated, long enough for the doorbell to ring again; taking a moment to try and peep through the shutters to see a rather sleek looking car and… not much else of note. This person must be on their own then, Hana surmised, taking a deep breath and readying herself—whatever lean muscle she had coiled—in case her assumption was wrong as she opened the door.

Satya gazed back at her from opposite the threshold, visibly exhausted but still managing to hold herself upright with casually impeccable grace and beauty as always—not that Hana knew her to have any other demeanour, especially when she’d happily label her immaculate regardless. She was tired, but to Hana, she emanated radiance. All that was missing was a halo and some wings but the look didn’t really suit her either, she was beyond that. The gamer stared, mouth stuttering over words that hadn’t even had the time to form in her mind, wondering what inspired her to descend from on high in her hour of need.

“S…Satya?”

“Hana,” she replied softly. “I’m sorry to bother you--.”

“Wow, no, no, not at all—you’re not bothering me!” Hana answered quickly, glancing behind her “Would you… like to come in?”

“I think it would be better if you came with me.”

Not the most appropriate time perhaps—.

“I’d feel better if you weren’t alone while Fareeha and Angela both are in the hospital,” Satya clarified, her voice fading to a shier murmur “…I also could do with the company.”

“A…and you’re sure you want me for that?”

Hana was granted a vulnerable, breathtakingly beautiful smile which extinguished what hesitance and second-guessing rose in her mind, as Satya answered “I searched for you for a reason.”

 

* * *

 

First Hanzo stepped in, scowling face on another level as he grimly locked eyes with a battered Angela, lying in her hospital bed in her marine-green gown, with Genji gloomily following behind him. A few hours had passed since they had originally charged into the ER with her agonised wailing in Hanzo’s arms.

“How is she doing?” Angela asked quietly, throat still too raw to be at normal volume, vacantly staring at the spot below the television where some recap of Fame or Shame was running. Painkillers were working a treat, if anything.

“Fareeha is stable, she is being monitored currently,” Hanzo answered with a quick nod, glancing over to where a tired shell of Ana Amari’s usual self sat “The surgery was a success, but she’ll need some time to rest.”

Genji dragged a chair over and swung a leg around so that he could rest his arms and chin on the back of it “First time we directly encountered any Talon mercs. Think that was the head honcho? Who was the chick?”

Ana chimed in, folding her arms tightly as her one eye focused on Hanzo’s shared scowl “If Gabriel Reyes was there, he’s Talon’s founder. Someone else was with him?”

“Amélie,” Angela murmured, still staring at the spot from before as if she didn’t notice Ana’s head snapping to her at overtly full attention “Amélie Lacroix was with him. She shot Fareeha. I heard them talking.”

“Not her,” Ana muttered in disbelief, already shaking her head but her eye was firmly fixed on Angela “It couldn’t be. She disappeared after Gerárd died--.”

“She took your eye too. Reyes put her up to all of this. She’s Talon now,” the wounded doctor finished, now fully looking over at the old sniper who hung her head low. Merryweather’s former finest sat in silence, almost impressed at Gabriel’s determination to turn everything good she had against her, mourning the loss of Amélie’s idyllic lifestyle as well as her goals and dreams.

Angela frowned, a delayed question forming in her mind as she looked at the brothers, who awkwardly looked at anywhere but the gloomy Egyptian “Who tipped you off to where I was?”

“The IAA,” Hanzo rumbled, brows furrowed around fiery eyes as spirit found him once more “They were watching Fareeha and tracked the sniper’s movements to the docks; I think by the time Angela had crossed the bridge into the docklands we were on our way. A good thing too, any minute later and…”

Genji reflexively winced, especially as Angela regarded Hanzo with an even duller gaze than before.

“Hanzo, Genji.”

“Yes?” both brothers responded, listening intently.

“Talon needs to go, and Reyes too,” the blonde began, attempting to sit up with a sharp wince “I saved his life but he still carries a grudge—that’s why they were picking shells out of my legs. He probably won’t stop until everyone associated with Merryweather is dead, so we need to stop him first. I’m not going to wait until he kills someone.”

Genji sat upright, fired up and full of vim, looking over to the weathered former mercenary and about to shout his declarations when Hanzo squeezed his shoulder far too painfully for it to be anything but dissuasion. Not right now, his stern expression said wordlessly.

A tiny beep sounded from Ana’s pocket; she plucked out her phone to see a message from Hana. Reading the contents, she adopted a more focused, determined posture “Ah, Hana’s staying with Satya for the time being. Apparently she was called by one of Reyes’ underlings, given a phone contact so that we can settle this face to face. How good of this person.”

“What is your plan?” the elder Shimada asked.

Ana locked the phone and set it aside with a weary sigh “Jack Morrison and Reinhardt Wilhelm are the only two Merryweather elite left asides from myself and Reyes. I think he would like them to be present too, and I have no doubts they’d like to put this mess to rest whatever may happen. I have no interest in doing anything but ensuring Gabriel understands why things happened the way they did, but I will act in self-defence should he attack.”

“We’ll help,” Genji quickly jumped in, nodding rapidly “That’s our promise to you. We’ll help with whatever you need: firepower, transport, whatever you want.”

“Thank you, Genji,” Ana gently interrupted him, smiling sadly “Let me step out and call the Merryweather boys. It’s time to end this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weeee're almost at the endddddd sorry this update took a while. hope you guys have been having a good holidays so far and may 2017 not suck


	20. Calm Before A Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana makes a bold choice despite everyone else thinking it would be a bad idea, Ana reminisces as Hanzo brings her to the end of the Merryweather journey.

Lake Vinewood Drive, Vinewood Hills; the morning sun needed to fight through the cloud blanket in order to reach any part of the city below. Rain was rare, but it existed here even in Los Santos. It was a lazy morning all around, as Hana leaned against the rail of the balcony in her mussed flimsy excuse for bedclothes, overlooking the vast garden and pool. Satya’s house was even more impressive looking than Fareeha’s, tucked further up the eastern Vinewood Hills with a view of the famous letters and the unfolding city below, bedecked by clean interior design and bold colours compared to the far cosier mishmash of décor in the Amari home. At the same time, its spaciousness just hammered home how _lonely_ it must be, since it seemed the surgeon lived by herself. The dreamy sound of Mesmerised by Scenic hung in the air, carried out from the vast living room space through the sliding glass door set ajar.

“What radio station’s that?” Hana absentmindedly asked while looking over her shoulder, as Satya began making herself some tea.

“Radio Mirror Park,” was the answer, almost lost in the drifting ponderous track itself, while the Indian leaned against the clean black marble counter.

Non-Stop Pop and Soulwax FM were her more pressing personal choices, but hey, find out something new every day. “Huh, might have to listen to it more often.”

 

* * *

 

_Liberty City’s landmark bridges sprawled out in the distance as the jet landed in Francis International Airport, while the incoming snowstorm became the soft blizzard the meteorologists suspected it would be the opposite of. Not exactly the ideal conditions to secure the bridges, but this was gonna be a big payday for the Merryweather boys—that was, at least, how Gabriel tried to rally the dour unit they were taking with them. There had been some warnings of gang threats, and they were called in to assist with containment: take the bridges, surround them and squash ‘em. It was straightforward._

_“Why are you so worried looking?” Jack asked, sparkling blue eyes and crest of blond hair joining his rugged voice to complete the all-American picture that he was. “C’mon, you said it yourself. Straightforward.”_

_Ana blinked from the misty window, chuckling in an ever so slightly forced manner with a shake of her long black tresses “I know, I know. There’s a lot of bridges to cover to cordon off a borough, now that I see it.”_

 

* * *

 

“Would you like any tea, Hana?” Satya asked, walking towards her with a mug in one hand and clutching her loose robe tighter with the other.

“Nah, I’m good.”

The surgeon frowned lightly at her distant tone; tilting her head as she joined the gamer’s side “Is everything alright?”

“You know what’s going on, right?”

Satya felt like it was only yesterday that she had notified Fareeha of something odd going on in the city’s underbelly judging by the string of ER arrivals, when yesterday was overseeing surgeries to make sure that same pilot didn’t drown in her own blood. Even despite restful sleep (well, when she got some), the exhaustion from those hectic days still sat under her eyes “Only some inkling, and even then I wish I didn’t.”

Distant traffic could be heard from the more touristy lowlands of the Vinewood Hills, filling the air between them. Hana frowned, the irony of her situation not lost on her “Who woulda thought that sticking to the person who saved my life from an armed robbery would get me in the middle of all this shit?”

“…I wish I could say this is none of my business, but it’s clearly inescapable once those so close to me are so deeply involved.” The surgeon inhaled deeply and sighed as she raised her mug to her lips. Hana watched, as Satya’s expression went from pensive to very worried as she swallowed her tea along with her realisation “What are we supposed to do? Wait it out? I assume whoever attacked Fareeha and Angela is still at large--.”

Hana furrowed her brows, staring into the horizon as she felt a curious new feeling override the anxiety she’d been wrestling with for a couple of days since the attack, something like the one she felt helping Fareeha with those creeps on the boat. Ana knew who did it, thanks to Angela’s brave if misguided attempt to chase the person who did it; so she had something to go on especially now that they were gonna meet up and duke it out one last time. She had a chance to do something for Fareeha now, this time. Her loose hands curled into fists as determination began to turn gears in her head and coil her muscles into action “If there’s anything I can do about it, I don’t want to just sit by and hide.”

“Would you be watching over Fareeha and Angela in the hospital?” asked Satya, hopeful that Hana wasn’t going to try anything too courageous; any other injuries and the surgeon mightn’t be able to keep together, or at least feign it.

“Nah, the place’s crawling with Shimada suits now, they’re guarding ‘em apparently. Least that’s what ol’ halmeoni—er, Ana— told me in a text before you n’ I, uh, got sidetracked last night,” the gamer replied, smiling slightly and weaving her arm around Satya’s, squeezing her hand gently and casting a shy look over at her “I think I needed that, by the way, after all that’s been going on. …Thanks.”

“The feeling is mutual,” the Indian murmured as she caught her eye, reciprocating the squeeze, stroking Hana’s thumb with her own “We both needed a good distraction.”

The words hung in the air as lazily as the idle, quiet music track did, as the two gazed at one another for a moment. Hana took initiative, but only when Satya gave her a permissive smile with eyes half-lidded and closed the distance, kissing her tenderly in a soft embrace. The Korean’s own expression was rather remorseful as she parted “I don’t know if I can totally stay away from trouble here, it might find me one way or another.”

“What do you mean?” the older woman asked, immediately worried.

“I owe eo—Fareeha—a lot. After all she’s done for me, I owe it to her to find the person who dared shoot her,” Hana answered, tone low but weighty with purpose. As if hurried into action by her words, a phone—Fareeha’s—rang from inside like a call to arms; Hana gave a fearful Satya an apologetic look as she hurried in to answer, finding the caller name being that of ‘Tracer’.

“Hey, Fareeha’s not here. She’s in the hospital.”

“ _Oo-er, I’d prefer to talk to ‘er personally, but if she’s not around--_.”

“You were that lady who drove that van into the Shimada jeep chasing us—I recognise your Brit as fuck voice anywhere. You’re one of those IAA dudes,” Hana jumped in, noting the familiar and unique quality of the voice, especially as it twigged a painful boat-injury related memory of her own. She glanced over at the surgeon’s expression becoming grave at the mere mention of the Shimada name, but focused on not letting it dissuade this sudden burst of determination; here she had an opportunity to get right on the front lines, and she wasn’t about to let it slip by. “You know she got messed up, right?”

 

* * *

 

_Gabriel hummed ‘Liberty, liberty’ under his breath as the team disembarked, nodding at the FIB agents who had secured their services. One stepped forward and beckoned them towards a hangar where a fleet of black jeeps with tinted windows awaited them “You’re early, but that’s a damn sight better than late. Mightn’t have made it with that shit coming in from the north, but anyways—your target’s Dukes Bay Bridge currently. Gonna need to cut off traffic there and then move to East Borough Bridge, and then Northwood Heights Bridge.”_

_“Easy enough,” Reyes quipped to Jack with a wink “We’ll be home before we know it.”_

_“Looking forward to it,” his partner grinned, elbowing him in the gut as both a jovial response and a gentle dissuasion from continuing the conversation. It was 1989 after all. “Hope Jesse’s alright.”_

_“Kid’s got a babysitter minding him and Fareeha in Alderney—“ Ana’s stomach tightened despite the relaxed nature of the conversation. “—and this mission’s gonna be piss easy.”_

_“A party then after this too, greater than when we repelled Australia!” Reinhardt boomed, having been far too quiet until now “If the snow holds and we can leave hastily enough, I would love to take the two dears and build some snowmen.”_

_Something about stung her so much closer to the soul, so much worse than Reyes and Morrison’s cosy banter._

 

* * *

 

The voice on the other end hesitated. Hana continued “Can you do me a favour?”

“ _Guess so, if y’know who I am already_.”

“You’re gonna go find this douchebag Reyes, right? He’s got some part in why she’s all fucked up, he has to, Ana said so. Amélie Lacroix’s probably gonna be there too and she did fuck her up,” Hana paused, steeling herself with a calming breath before adding “Take me with you so I can return the favour to her shitty French face.”

“ _You’re a civilian--_.”

“And? Fareeha was a civvie too!” Hana replied, the name a little weird in her voice when the term ‘eomma’ wanted to jump in before it. Her back was turned to Satya, unaware of the horror in her expression as the urge to throw herself headfirst into absolute danger became known “She saved my ass so many times I’m due to pay her back somehow, and this is the _perfect_ way to do that.”

“ _Christ. It’s your funeral, short stuff. I’ll keep an eye on you since Fareeha cares about you big time, yeah? But keep your arms and legs inside the ride, or you might be deader than she ever got to be_.”

“I get it. It’s fine. I know what I’m getting myself in for.”

“ _If you’re that dead set, I guess I should_ ,” the agent huffed “ _Where are you at? We’re all mobilising more or less_.”

Hana gave the surgeon’s address, and quietly murmured a thank you as she hung up the call, setting the phone aside and sighing deeply into her hands. ‘Tracer’ was due in 5 minutes, and it seemed the brief ETA inspired a faint nervous tingle through her body, not quite fight or flight just yet, but no doubt when she got to the arena it’d kick in then. She felt a tentative hand on her shoulder, looking to see a grave Satya visibly wrestling with a host of thoughts and emotions.

“You’re sure of this?”

“The one good gut feeling I have, yeah,” the gamer murmured with a weak nod, suddenly unable to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry, this is just really important for me.”

“I’m not about to try and stop you,” the older woman began, casting her eyes downwards at the tiling “I did ask you if you wished to stay here as a means for us to both have company in this trying time. I can’t expect to keep you here under lock and key of course. If this is… if this is really what you wish to do, then I should respect that decision. I do not like it much, but I’ll respect it nonetheless.”

“Thank you,” Hana whispered, wrapping her arms around her and giving her a quick, tight squeeze in gratitude. They stood there for a moment, taking it in until there was a rhythmic knock on the door. Parting, the Korean ran to the heavy oaken door and swung open to see the owner of the voice from earlier, looking far less upbeat than their initial crossing of paths.

“Hiya, you say your goodbyes yet?”

“Don’t say it like that, but yeah I guess I have.”

“If you’re sure. She looks like she could do with a bit more attention. I’ll wait in the car, pet,” Tracer looked over at Satya who continued to ignore her in favour of Hana. Truth be told, she didn’t mind much at being blatantly forgotten about, given she felt she was really intruding on something either way, and so she walked towards her car to wait for her shotgun passenger.

“Hana? One last thing.”

“Yeah?”

Satya rubbed her upper arm, demeanour a mix of melancholic and curiously shy “Maybe after this is all done, perhaps we can think about being… something more than what we currently are.”

“Wow… wow, y-yeah you bet,” Hana was taken aback; the idea would any other day have shot her to the moon with enough energy to power the continent of North America for 10 years from sheer joy, wanting so much to be enthusiastic and overjoyed with the surprise suggestion—until the reality of what she was about to do sank in. Even despite staring what was almost certain death in the face, courage held resolute. On the other hand, something she had dreamed of on the precipice of reality was just there, now the one true deterrent rather than probably meeting an untimely, early end. “...if I come back that is.”

“When,” Satya murmured, stepping forward and holding Hana close. “ _When_ you come back.”

 

* * *

 

_None of their men survived the Dukes Bay Bridge ambush, surrounded by SWAT vans, IAA and FIB cars alike. What was supposed to be an easy closing of the stream of traffic onto Bohan turned into a living nightmare, as civilian cars had already been long turned away on the Bohan side, and by the time they had turned back to Broker, the job ostensibly done, they were pinned._

_The founding four were all that was left, as a dozen fully equipped government men pointed their rifles at them in their respective hiding spots and screamed at them to drop their weapons and surrender, with twice that appearing behind bearing riot shields. Reinhardt refused to listen, all bravado as he charged from over cover and swung the butt of his exhausted rocket launcher at them with the ease becoming his massive frame, as the entire riot shield unit honed in on him and shoved him with all their might off of the bridge. It took a few attempts, but once a lucky slice of a knife struck his eye it was all they needed to edge out a victory. The sound of his roar embedded itself in Ana’s mind, sick to her stomach that this was her only choice to get Fareeha some normalcy._

_Jack and Gabriel had started out from behind cover to try reach Reinhardt in vain, for them to be separated, as Ana stepped into the melee to steer the attention of their attackers. She ran towards Morrison, his expression of confusion as he tried to make sense of the chaos immediately around them, as the boundary of angry government bodies took the hint and divided them from Gabriel. In the struggle, as Gabriel furiously fought and downed many with ruthless blasts of his sawn-off shotgun in faces and necks alike, he could only watch helplessly as Ana and Jack’s own battle was far less intense as his. Even as their foes fell upon the two, Ana could tell that Gabriel knew there was something murky underfoot, remembering how his expression changed from helplessness to anger in a matter of seconds._

_He was thrown in jail for his part in the Vice City Incident, judged to be the head of the PMC, too dangerous to be allowed among the masses; Jack, Reinhardt (who had landed in an FIB boat below) and Ana were scattered to the winds. Merryweather was no more._

 

* * *

 

Hanzo had been privy to awkwardly silent car journeys for many reasons, many of whom all have a mopey Genji post terrible date in common, but few compared to the muted gulf between him and the only other occupant in the Shimada vehicle. He naturally jumped when she suddenly sat upright and looked around like she was seconds from trying to shoot someone.

“Genji has Reinhardt. I believe one of the IAA is bringing Jack to the destination.”

“Good,” Ana answered tersely, staring straight ahead at the freeway they cruised along.

“We’re supposed to be going to this recycling plant in the Senora Desert, correct? Why there?”

“At this point in the evening it’ll be empty, as far away from people as it could be and still reachable by vehicle. It’s the best halfway. That’s how I make sense of it.”

“So you’re not that sure yourself, either?”

“No.”

Admittedly, the Shimada heir was not the most adept for scintillating conversation, but given what they were driving towards combined with the multi-layered history and the grudges afoot, he would give some leniency to brevity. Ana almost lost her daughter, and the perpetrator was merely 2 hours away waiting for her to show up. He would feel just the same if he were in such a situation.

“I’m sorry,” Ana sighed after what felt like an hour.

“No need to apologise. I understand.”

She gave him a quizzical look that he only caught out of the corner of his eye, focused on the road as he was. “I should hope you never find yourself in my place at any point.”

He had to concede that point, with his shoulders drooping.

“Hanzo, please take some words of wisdom from this old mercenary,” Ana leaned back into the passenger seat “If there’s anything you do in this life, do not let things remain unsettled and grow to ferment into something worse. It’s always best to take care of things there and then, and be honest. It will save you the kind of grief that I have come upon.”

“We normally do not allow things to age over decades to such a degree, no.”

“That was not an invitation to be short with me,” she muttered, with just enough venom to make him shift around and clear his throat with many polite apologies.

“R-Regardless, you have the clan’s full assistance with whatever way you wish to end this feud. I am, er, just not sure if they’ll get out here in time should you need them.”

She shook her head, beginning to lose her patience perhaps a tad. He was very insistent, wasn’t he? “There’s no need. Whatever happens, will happen. The air must be cleared first.”

Ana had a strong feeling she would end up dead, but if it spared Fareeha and everyone else Reyes was dragging into the centre of it all, it would be worth it. It needed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only a couple of chapters left my dudes, im gonna get this finished i swear to god


	21. Merryweather Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for old soldiers to resolve their differences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for suicide in this chapter, it's towards the end.

Loud whistling accompanied the radio station’s music (graciously switched to Non-Stop Pop at Hana’s request, though the whistling not so much), as the Vinewood hills were now well behind them at this stage. It was all that they had to listen to, until Hana felt like she needed to break the silence.

“Do you think that, whatever this is, it’ll be over after this?”

“Good question sunshine,” Lena replied, alternating between the index fingers tapping on the wheel in tune to the bombastic beat of ‘Toxic’ which sounded jarring against her solemn tone “I’m not sure. I suppose in one way or another the proper mercenary nonsense is gonna be done with, but as for the individuals involved, well… y’got me there. Oh--!”

Hana blinked “What’s up?”

“You’re going to need firearms, pet.” The Englishwoman opened up the glove compartment where a sheathed combat knife and a pistol sat ready and waiting “There’s heavier shit in the boot, but they’re just in case. We shouldn’t be too involved with the crux of the issue after all. You can keep those. I’ve got a whole armoury back in the city. Oh, and when y’nab that gun, mind the safety? It’s on right now; I’ve seen too many numpties bleed out because they shot themselves in the fucking leg.”

Shaky hands claimed the weapons on offer, pocketing them in baggy track pants. The car wound around the bends of the mountainous roads into the Grand Senora Desert, in view of Zancudo river and approaching their destination from the west.

“Where is this place exactly?”

“It’s the Grand Senora Recycling Centre.”

“The fuck? A plant? Seriously?” Hana baulked “There no good picturesque places to have a showdown?”

“It’s… not quite what you’re imagining.”

Within an hour they were at the selected battleground; indeed, far less of a plant and more a place where wreckage was piled up and left to rust in the desert air. The closest thing resembling a functioning recycling business was at the front, with the vehicular graveyard behind it locked by only a chain gate, a meagre deterrent already left in pieces in the ground by those presumably waiting for the other parties privy to this. In the distance, huge satellite dishes exchanged information between radio stations and every receiving radio in the state, all you can watch garbage TV across the world ported into every TV in the vicinity, adding an eerie backdrop to the rotting metal around them.

Hana and Lena got out of the car, looking around at what seemed to be a completely vacant area, hearing only distant footsteps. Lena led the way through the business front, all senses firmly focused on eking out the location of any presence that she knew was lurking. Hana crept behind, warily fixing the sheath of the knife to her pants and the gun in her pocket tapped against her leg reminding her she had murder hidden there if she so wished. The effect was the opposite of pleasant or reassuring, as anxiety swirled through her being, wondering if Amélie Lacroix was really here.

“Hang tight bigshot, lemme make sure it’s safe to…” Tracer trailed off, peering around the edge of the steel mesh gate to see a woman standing alone with a cigarette pinched between her fingers. She knew who it was, certainly, but it took Hana a moment to realise with widening eyes as the dazed Swiss-German accented description matched this woman almost precisely.

All Hana knew next was her body powering through the steel gates at full pelt towards her.

It took Amélie a second too late to react; something she dully observed was a typical occurrence in her life as a completely unexpected fist met her jaw, startling her enough to drop her smoke. By the time she realised there was a threat beside her, another flailing punch smacked her in the gut though not hard enough to wind her. She regained control of herself, grumbling as she identified her attacker to be some punk student with the uncanny aim of an expert albeit with the power lacking—though if she kept such whirling blows up it may be enough to whittle her down. _Who was this, exactly?_

Amélie moved as much as she could, swinging a loud clap of a backhand into the girl’s face, buying herself a breather. It was enough to recognise her attacker’s appearance, the girl who was with Fareeha that day—and Amélie found herself frozen to the spot. She merely accepted the rain of fists and kicks that swung every which way into her body, as the girl roared bloody swearing murder once she composed herself, backing the Frenchwoman against the wall. Knuckles clattered against her nose, her jaw, her cheek, her stomach, her ribs, her neck until finally; _finally_ her attacker was too tired to sustain the assault. Amélie could barely stand, keeling over and falling to her hands and knees, aching bruises all over her torso and bleeding from the lip.

“Thanks for nothing, _asshole_.”

She was kicked onto her back, and she felt a weight on her gut as the Korean sat atop of her, pinning her arms down with her knees. Amélie’s collar was grabbed, and she wearily looked up, at the flushed face and fury filled eyes, with little left other than bleak acceptance for her fate.

“Hey, Hana—Hana what the bloody hell are you doing?” Amélie faintly recognised the voice, as Lena cautiously stepped into the makeshift arena. Hana ignored her, readying a bruised fist pointed for the sniper’s face when suddenly the barrel of a sawn off shotgun firmly lodged itself under the girl’s neck. Panic filled her, but she simply followed where the weapon shoved her—painfully off of her feet and forced to stand and walk back until she could back away no more, pressed against a high concrete wall behind piles of scrap. Hana panted and gasped as the barrel pushed in that little bit more until metal bit her trachea and air began to get scarce. Her hands were fixed around the newcomer’s wrist as her eyes were focused on the white mask he wore.

“Who the hell do you think you _are_.”

“Reyes,” Lena whispered, a hand on her gun but hesitant to react as the main target of the whole Overwatch Initiative revealed himself, just in case her prematurely aiming at him meant Hana would get decapitated by a point-blank shotgun blast. The gamer wriggled, feeling a whole new kind of terror, that all the way back at the Ltd gas station almost felt like a summer holiday in comparison, as certain death focused on her neck.

“ ** _REYES!_** ” a voice roared, followed by loud Arabic and the jingling of the gate, adding “Point that damned gun away from her! You’ve hurt Fareeha; you’re **_not_** taking Hana too!”

The man chuckled darkly, tilting his head slightly as if to regard Ana stamping in with the man in a suit, though Hana could tell his rumble was for her “I was wondering why a child was punching my trusted sniper in the face. Amari hypnotised you too hmm?”

“Reyes,” Amélie muttered, collecting herself on the ground from where she had remained stationary, especially after having heard Ana’s voice “Don’t kill the girl, she’s innocent.”

“Fine,” he growled, removing the muzzle of his gun only to smack Hana in the face with it and send her to the dirt not unlike how the Frenchwoman was currently. He turned to look at Ana in full, straightening his shoulders as the chuckle he wanted to delve into turned into an angry thunderous growl. “How kind of you to deliver yourself to me, when I’ve been looking for you for over 15 years.”

“You forced my hand, Reyes,” Ana scowled, gritting her teeth “You know damned well why.”

“It wasn’t intended, but it brought you to me. And now, I finally get to take my revenge after all this time,” he pointed the gun at her, coiling his finger around the trigger.

“Wait, do you not want to hear the answers to those questions you must have had? This would be your last chance to get that information, you know.” It was a little bit of a last gasp attempt, having risked instant death simply by showing up with no weapons as a sign of good will that was surely past the point of relevancy, but it seemed to have worked.

Reyes visibly contemplated it, pointing the weapon upwards with a cant of his head, before snarling as he watched Jack Morrison and Reinhardt Wilhelm join, flanked by Shimadas (high ranking, he could tell, if not of the family outright) and a large bearded man with tiny glasses alike. The old crew was now all here, with some annoying extras but beggars weren’t choosers.

“You’re going to want to talk now, and fast.”

The girl Reyes was threatening with his gun was dragged away by the scruff of her shirt as the wiry agent yanked her to safety. Ana took a deep breath.

“I wanted to leave Merryweather after Fareeha was born. Ever since I held her as a newborn, watching her eyes take in the world she had been brought into, I knew I needed to make hers a safe one. I didn’t want to risk leaving her alone, or worse, caught in the line of fire because of what I did,” Ana began, her expression rueful as she shook her head slowly, her mind’s eye of her daughter going from mewling infant to fully grown woman lying motionless on a hospital bed. “After Merryweather dissolved, I had done all I could to steer her away from violent vocations that would put her in great danger more often than not as well as draw attention to her and her family name. But I was torn. I still naturally filled with pride when she proved herself to have the same battling instincts like I do, and it was almost impossible not to praise her when she showed such potential for it. What good that did, trying to keep her safe while in two minds about it; now that she lies on a bed with assisted breathing thanks to the bullet in her chest.”

Reyes had folded his arms as well as he could, toting a large shotgun in one hand, regarding her with the unmoving mask in silence.

“She was on the precipice of making a new future for herself, I could tell. She and Angela—they looked like they were made for one another, so much so I felt it was perhaps time to tell Fareeha the truth, about Merryweather, about her father and who he is. I thought it was safe enough to, to tell her and then I would face my past and the secrets I kept alone should it have come to it. Now you have left Angela unable to walk too—when I believed Fareeha and Angela had a future together, I did not want it to be in hospital or in a morgue. This stops here.”

Reyes did not react instantly, slowly chuckling ominously as he shook his head “Did you drop the girl on her head? You never shared the details with the rest of Merryweather, but any **_idiot_** could tell it’s that boisterous moron Wilhelm.”

Ana sighed, looking downwards. The remark defused Reinhardt’s simmering posture, leaving him deflated. This, out of all of their myriad secrets, was perhaps the worst kept, but before she could offer some kind of reflection on the matter, her former comrade blew up anew when it came to the Swiss doctor.

“Angela?! _Dr fucking **Ziegler**!?_ ” he roared, calm demeanour discarded in an instant “How convenient that the person who left me mangled would gravitate to the family of one of the turncoats who had me locked up in maximum fucking security for over a decade!”

Reyes ripped off his mask, revealing the twisted mutilation around his eye, nose and mouth, scarred lip turned into a snarl, startling the old Merryweather trio opposing him and silencing Genji Shimada who was ready to defend her name until he saw a fate he was close to sharing. Reinhardt recoiled, Ana stared, and Jack’s hand went to his own grim scar, feeling the phantom pain from their showdown in North Yankton as he realised he was looking upon his own handiwork on Reyes’ face.

“Jesus Christ,” the former Strike Commander mumbled, a hand on his guts where the disfigured man had almost disembowelled him thoroughly 13 years ago. All of them bore scars in some way from this mess, some more viscerally than others “You’re not the only one messed up here.”

“You should’ve thought about that before _all_ of _you **fucking cunts**_ turned on me!” Reyes screamed, his face threatening to split in anger.

“ ** _Jack and Reinhardt had nothing to do with this!_** ” Ana finally yelled, snapped out of her remorseful reverie to cut through the Talon founder’s rant prematurely. “They didn’t do a _damned thing_ against you; _I_ took the deal with the FIB, **_I_** turned away from Merryweather; **_I_** **_sold you out_** because I was promised Fareeha’s safety and a normal life for her if I did! I knew no other way to guarantee her peace from whatever hellish life she may have had otherwise. It was all **_me_**!”

The force of the confession seemed to have knocked many of those in attendance for a couple of beats, even Reyes himself. Reinhardt and Jack had their suspicions, Lena along with Winston nodded at each other—silently agreeing that this was the most vital update to the PMC dossier they had, the brothers Shimada stepped back as Hanzo carefully stepped ahead of Hana warily. Gathering his composure as much as he could, but remaining wide-eyed as his single functioning eye focused on Ana’s, Gabriel Reyes seemed a paradoxical mix of relieved and infuriated. He had context for why those men got between him and Jack, why Ana hurried away and let them partition him away from those he thought were his allies, context for the beginning of the string of events stemming from that fateful day. He finally, _finally_ heard the truth after 27 years, but even so now he had a solid reason to take out Ana—he’d deal with Jack and Reinhardt his own way. “…I _knew_ it.”

There was a pause, before he levelled his sawn off shotgun at her face again “And it’s time to pay for your betrayal--.”

“ ** _Don’t give me that shit Reyes!_** Don’t you **dare**! You _know_ you would’ve done the same _if you ever thought or **cared** about Jesse’s safety!_ ”

Ana was breathing heavily, her words echoing into the dry, arid Senora air. Reyes’ gun was askew, as if the statement had knocked him physically ajar. The revelation that she had chosen to throw in the towel on Merryweather alone was still sinking into Jack and Reinhardt; in truth they had been in many minds about the dissolution at the time and even wary of each other for causing it, but in later years they had preferred the reclusive civilian life instead of danger. And here, the veritable source of any danger relating to the PMC’s fallout, as well as any danger when they were all well within their mercenary primes was stunned for words. What expression he could manage with his distorted face was one they could perceive as some sort of realisation dawning on him in front of their eyes.

No one moved; Lena was in the exact same pose she had locked herself into earlier, though now watching the old Merryweather teammates with interest as she shuffled Hana behind her and Hanzo. Amélie had given up on standing and had since propped herself upright against a dented bonnet from an archaic Banshee car.

“…Jack,” Reyes murmured.

“…yeah?” Morrison uneasily responded, sharing a brief look with Reinhardt and Ana alike.

“How—How is Jesse?” The scarred man’s words were choked, stilted, as if voicing any genuine concern had been foreign to his vocabulary since 1989 what with venom being his go to since then, especially directed at the man who once knew him so intimately. He couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eye “He’s hardly still a little kid, huh.”

“He’s a man grown now. Almost 40 years of age, with a job that keeps food on his table and him on his feet,” Jack started, hands curling and uncurling anxiously with nothing in their grasp “I thought he’d have forgotten being around mercenaries and weapons at a young age, but he’s always gotten into fights trying to be a vigilante… as if it was his true calling, despite everything I tried.”

Reyes nodded gravely, his single working eye cast downwards at his feet. Maybe things would’ve been different had he not been so hopelessly tunnel-visioned towards the Merryweather cause. Maybe if he had just stopped to think and take stock of where he was and who was in his care, if he could just have prioritised, the last 30 years might’ve happened differently—but how could he let himself forget about Jesse? How could he blank on the screaming boy he pulled to safety, from the wreckage of a destroyed home in the thick of an Australian assault on the West Coast? He wanted to raise him with Jack, for Christ’s sakes, how did he let himself forget?

How did he lose himself into mindless murder for a paycheck, to the point where betrayal was the only way to redirect his attention…? He had utterly lost the run of himself, enhanced by languishing on hatred in prison after the Liberty City ambush, reinvigorated when the FIB struck him a deal to try freedom on their terms and kill for them overseas in the Middle East, accelerated when success let him pour resources acquired into Talon. The North Yankton duel with Jack only galvanised his avenging fury, focusing it to needle point on whoever of the elite Merryweather soldiers were left… and the doctor who left him so inhumane looking, if he found her again.

But none of that mattered now, not when he knew fully well, despite what Ana did, he knew that if he cared enough he would’ve done the same in a heartbeat. Gabriel Reyes had become a monstrous shell of what he used to be, but the transformation had begun in advance of that fateful day on the Dukes Bay Bridge. His mind walked him back through Ana’s words, until it stopped him on Fareeha’s current state of being; he could only vaguely recall the woman that Amélie mistakenly shot, and how at odds that sat with the chubby baby sleeping in Ana’s arms that he recalled, and his brain cruelly substituted the grim events to feature what he imagined Jesse to be fully grown. Sympathy and remorse blossomed for the first time in years within his cold heart, squeezing it painfully when he realised he had _never_ put Jesse first the way Ana had always put Fareeha first, and here he had the _nerve_ to so callously not care that she took the bullet meant for her mother.

“I wish I could see him,” Reyes murmured, his resolve for vengeance crumbling, recognising he had no business being here, not when everyone had been so worried about the future while he had once cared only about the present and now, and fixated on what had happened in the past.

Ana blinked, comprehending the change of attitude and sought to help encourage it gently “There’s still time, Gabriel, if we can resolve this now.”

He didn’t think so. There was too much blood on his hands to simply get out of this hole he had dug himself into. Gabriel hummed gruffly, thoughtfully, looking over at the dejected, injured Amélie.

“Lacroix.”

She pulled her shoulders up, staring at him wide-eyed with a little bit of fear and curiosity alike at what he was about to do next. Ana, Jack and Reinhardt observed with varying levels of interest, especially the old sniper, wondering if this was how her former student crossed paths with Reyes.

“2010, you were living in an apartment near Vinewood Boulevard with Gérard, before he died.”

“Please, Reyes, do not rub in my crime,” Amélie’s forlorn expression became pained, and Hana instantly felt grievously guilty for being so violently gung-ho about attacking her, just to make things even after Fareeha’s hospitalisation, more so just to make herself feel better. It was a good thing she had forgotten all about the weapons Lena had given her in her automatic drive to just punch the woman senseless, or things would've been worse-- hell she mightn't have been here to hear this, whatever this is.

Despite his haggard vocal chords, and despite how hate-filled his thunderous rumble of a voice had been for decades, Reyes spoke as gently as he could “The crime was never yours.”

“B-But you said! You had pulled me from the site of his death telling me _I_ did it, and you were getting me out of there so I _owed_ you!” the Frenchwoman stuttered, refusing to acknowledge the now extremely apparent elephant in the room “It was me, wasn’t it? You told me this for _years_ \--!”

“It was me, Lacroix,” Reyes insisted firmly, sadly. He sighed, pausing briefly when he heard Amélie’s breath catch “I overheard you two speaking about Ana Amari while you walked down the Boulevard, I was hidden in plain sight amid the other freaks at a horror premiere at the time. I monitored you both for a few days until I was sure of a connection, and took my chance.” He paused, watching her reaction, seeing her carefully constructed walls and internal circular arguments that fed her guilt begin to crash and burn, shown only through glassy grey eyes “I killed him, and fed you that so you’d have no choice but to stick with me. I don’t expect forgiveness or leniency. Just know that you have been completely innocent of his murder this whole time.”

“ _Knew_ it,” Lena whispered, lost under Amélie’s heartfelt wail of relief and closure, the woman buckling under the weight of her own emotion as she wept bodily, curling in on herself as she collapsed fully to the ground, consumed by 6 years of grief finally bubbling to the surface now that she was absolved.

There was a brief period of silence that draped over them, save for the sobbing, until Reinhardt stepped forward cautiously, offering a hand towards Reyes. “Gabriel, old firebrand, we’re all growing too old to carry grudges. Let us start anew together, on a new lease of friendship, and there will be more than enough time for you to see Jesse and for us to heal our old wounds.”

“No, he’s gotten by just fine without me. Wouldn’t be right to impose on him after all this time. What kinda dad am I, huh?”

Reinhardt shook his head solemnly “I am no golden example either, Gabriel.”

“You were at least there for her,” Gabriel answered quietly, glancing downwards at the soil under his boots with a sigh. “Besides, I’m not Gabriel Reyes anymore.”

Jack looked at him contemplatively “I don’t know, you sounded just like him there. That’s the old Gabe I remember.”

The mangled man laughed lowly, cocking his gun “I haven’t been called that in years. Don’t think I deserve to be either. I’m not Gabe, I’m not Gabriel Reyes; I’m just some spectre from the past made out of hate, bullshit and resentment that shouldn’t’ve come to be in the first place.”

Under his jaw now rested the muzzle, as his old comrades scurried about themselves in a sudden panic.

“Gabe, Gabe wait, please,” said Jack stepping forward.

“My friend, wait! We can try exist in peace as the pensioners we are turning into!” shouted Reinhardt, offering both arms towards him as if to try pull him from this hasty decision he was about to make.

“Gabriel, let us try and live out what we have left of our future,” Ana pleaded, hoping he would be amenable to diplomacy.

“We all know I’ve done far too much shit to merit being allowed to live,” Gabriel Reyes gazed over each of them in turn, before casting his eye over the broken Amélie, at Hana, and then pointedly at Ana “What’s left of the past needs to die, if the future wants to breathe.”

“Gabe!” Jack yelled, beginning to run, Reinhardt and Ana following swiftly. Hana felt herself follow Ana, until Lena grabbed her by the arm and hauled her back into a hug, forcing her to look away from the scene. Gabriel smiled sadly, and pulled the trigger.

“Don’t look,” the agent whispered into Hana’s ear, as Gabriel’s already skull-like face shattered from the nose up into a mess of bone, blood and brains spattering on the desert sands, his lifeless body loudly crumpling into a limp heap with his gun uselessly clattering to the ground beside him.

Jack cried out in abject horror, Reinhardt quick to his side. Ana fell to her knees overwhelmed, staring at the abrupt end of not just Merryweather’s legacy, but Talon, and Gabriel Reyes. Almost 30 years of keeping herself off the grid as much as humanely possible in order to hide from his wrath flashed through her mind, now rendered moot as the shotgun he wielded issued smoke for the last time. Age caught up as the energy she had summoned to keep out of his radar abandoned her in the immediate aftermath; Ana had never known exhaustion as thorough as this as she stared vacantly into the sky, free of the mercenary shackles finally. The sound of Amélie’s grieving was now chorused by old Morrison, with his German ally placing a sombre hand on his shoulder, murmuring words inaudible to the others but for his mourning friend.

Hana decided she didn’t need to be hidden away and protected, not when she knew someone needed her more. Shoving past Lena, who called after her to come back, ignoring the grisly scene, the gamer ran towards the kneeling, shaken Amari and threw her arms around the old woman in a fierce hug.

“It’s over halmeoni. It’s over, you can relax now.”

It took a minute for Ana to regain enough faculties to notice what was happening, but once she did, she reciprocated the tight hug and buried her face into Hana’s shoulder. The student wasn’t sure whether she was crying out of sorrow or joy, or just from everything happening—all of which was totally understandable, but she was there to help her through it and get her back to Los Santos—getting them both back to Fareeha who was gonna be better, and they’d all be safe and happy now, they _had_ to be.

Meanwhile, the IAA agents and the Shimada shared a look between them, all outsiders looking in. Genji turned away once he and Hanzo exchanged a nod of understanding, pulling out his phone and dialling the incapacitated doctor’s number “Hey, Angela?”

“ _This is not her, but her friend Satya. Why are you calling a patient’s phone_?”

“I don’t have time for this. It’s important, it’s to do with Fareeha’s mother,” Genji lied through his teeth, not interested in having an argument about semantics after watching someone commit suicide with a shotgun “It’ll be quick so she can get back to the rest she needs.”

“ _Very well_.”

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“Angela, it’s done. Gabriel is dead,” Genji confirmed, looking over his shoulder at the miserable scene. “Turns out he basically programmed the French sniper chick to think she killed her husband when he did it, too. I think Talon is done.”

“ _Really?_ ”

“Yep. It was… odd though. The old folks argued a lot, he pulled off his mask and he looked worse than I did before you fixed my face, and then… I dunno, there was a moment where he acted totally calm and kinda friendly, like that might’ve been the old Gabriel or something. But he wasn’t alive much longer after that.”

There was silence over the phone bar the distant faint accent of the woman he was speaking to before Angela, Satya, murmuring something reassuring to her patient. The Swiss woman eventually managed to ask “… _Ana? Is she okay?_ ”

“Yeah, don’t you worry. Ana is fine, so is the big lion guy and the sad crotchety dude. D.Va’s here too—and she’s safe. Reyes was the only fatality. Oh, uh, I think Ana has something really important to tell you and Fareeha, along with the big lion guy that I mentioned.”

“ _Important_?”

“Yeah, real important. Hang tight though, they’ll be back to tell both of you,” Genji said, pausing to see Hana help Ana to her feet slowly “How’s Fareeha doing anyway?”

“ _She’s stirring. Her path to recovery’s a little shorter than anticipated, luckily for us all. It’s… it’s a relief_.”

“Great, cos you guys are gonna finally have some peace and quiet,” he affirmed “No mercs, no snipers, no guns, no bad history, no shit like that to sneak up on you while you guys settle in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter's basically an epilogue, but the meat of the story's done. Thanks to everyone who's read this and for sticking this fic out, it means a bunch to me!
> 
> -
> 
> fun fact: Pharah's VA is in GTA5, her character in that game actually has a really gruesome death though, and it's bordering on ironic considering Fareeha is all about flying in Overwatch. Thankfully that won't be her fate in this halfway between GTA + OW.


	22. Loose Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New resolutions are made, as old ghosts are put to rest.

The glass bottle shattered with the bullet impact, as Hana pulled herself from the intense concentration to take in her success. Ana nodded and uttered praise “Good work. You’ve got an incredible eye for accuracy.”

“Thank videogames halmeoni,” Hana replied distantly, carefully loading the pistol the way the old Egyptian showed her, as the boys Junkrat and Roadhog were fishing on the tiny marina nearby. “Where’d you get all these bottles?”

“Oh, empty beers from the Morrison farm. Jesse drinks a bunch of these terrible hipster IPA things, Jack drinks the mainstream ‘Wasser, and sometimes this is how they opt to recycle it,” Ana chuckled, standing up from her fold-out deckchair and ambling to the crate of clinking old beer bottles. A depth charge exploded in the Alamo Sea as Junkrat cackled with joy, casting his net over the rising fish. “It’s one way to while away the day; want another round?”

“I’ll pass,” she answered, flicking the safety like she was a veteran of 10 years rather than 2 hours.

“A break then,” the old woman agreed, patting the girl’s shoulder as she reached into the cooler beside the crate and handed Hana an E-Cola while she grabbed some sparkling water “And well deserved.”

The duo sat in the two seats with their beverages and looked out over the Alamo Sea’s tiny marina near the small Amari home in comfortable silence, well, save for the boisterous fishing junkers. Ana opted to break it first, looking over at the wistful Hana with a more subtle version of her signature impish grin. “So, how is Satya? She’s done such incredible work repairing Fareeha and Angela that I marvel at her energy. Surely she collapses in your arms every night? To be that young again!”

“Ew!” Hana giggled, sticking out her tongue when Ana chuckled at her own subtle joke “I mean, she does fall asleep on me when she comes back, but sometimes she’s full of vim to go a few rounds before that.”

“Aha!” Ana’s laughter picked up; slamming her hand on the Korean’s shoulder victoriously “You’re beginning to sound like me without the extra 40 years.”

“No better role model!”

The Egyptian opened her mouth to say something, but grew somewhat misty-eyed, looking away “Maybe not so much. You’ve witnessed the consequences of my great failures in life up close and personal. I hope you never end up in such a quagmire.”

Hana shook her head, sitting forward a little to catch Ana’s eye “Think of it this way, if I didn’t know anything about this, I could even be prone to making the same kinda level of mistakes, don’tcha reckon? There’s a lot of important lessons I’ve learned from all this, and it started when I met eomma—uh, Fareeha.”

One eye glinted with sentimentality as Ana beamed, prideful in what she had to say “I know what eomma means, little hare--halmeoni too. I hope you know that I consider you an Amari by deed if not by flesh and blood. It takes courage to step into the same space as a gang of notorious mercenaries—even if they were all somewhat past their prime.”

Hana’s heart swelled, the compliment sinking deep beneath her skin and into her soul. At least two months ago she had always felt like just the little outcast on the side around her peers with the quirky slice of internet fame in her hands, but now she really felt like she was part of something. Of course, this went hand in hand with perhaps the most traumatic sequence of life events she’d ever experienced and hopefully would never have to again, but then again little wonder she bonded so much with the two Egyptians the way she did. The Korean beamed hard, a little bit more than normal to take the edge off gushy tears, before lunging at Ana with a tight hug.

“That really means a lot to me, y’know? It’s taken me forever to fit in someplace, and it fucking _blows_ that I’d have to go back home in a couple of years—whenever I can get a degree,” Hana said, sitting back on her chair with a more downcast look to her previously glowing face “My parents are probably wondering what the fuck I’m doing.”

“I’m sure residency will be accounted for, should you wish to stay here,” Ana simply offered, not exactly sure if her extraordinary circumstances for immigration would necessarily work this time for the student “Besides, enough money and they would be fools to send you away.”

“…yeah, fair point. Ugh, _fuck_ going back to Busan and my strict-ass parents, they can get visits sure but this is where I wanna **_live_**!” Hana declared, her spirit reviving “My family with you, halmeoni, and then my eomma Fareeha and eomma two Angela, and—.”

“And your latest squeeze,” Ana helpfully offered with a broad grin.

Hana caught the cheeky glint in her eye and reciprocated the devilish look with one of her own, practically sparkling with bold determination “You’re damn right I want to stay here with Satya!”

“That’s my girl,” Ana chuckled, ruffling Hana’s hair not unlike how Fareeha would. “Now that you mention my daughter, let’s go see her, hmm?”

 

* * *

 

Bolingbroke Maximum Security Prison, Los Santos County; Lena Oxton glared at the prison guard who doubted her credentials but let Winston do the talking for both of them. This place was just as suitably backward as the hicks who lived nearby, although Lena was sure some of them were often local to the prison itself given some fashionable anklets with glowing lights on certain ‘VIPs’.

“You sure she’s in here?”

“I’ve got the documentation right here, Lena,” Winston sighed, given it was the 5th time in the hour that she asked “I know it’s hard to believe, but she’s in her own section away from the rest of these brutes, receiving psychiatric help as requested by the IAA.”

“How do you think she’s gonna react to the news?” Lena asked, her earlier tone of complaint having been abandoned for deadly seriousness.

“…hard to say. We saw her empty her heart out in the airplane graveyard after Reyes came clean. I don’t know how she treated this particular part of Talon, so we’ll find out.”

“I’m right behind you, assholes.”

“Chill out hacker lady!” Lena huffed, glancing at their new friend who followed behind with a surly look.

“Gimme some respect then, yeesh.”

The group was led in to a room where it was set up clearly for prisoner-visitor interaction, the bulletproof glass dividing them from Amélie Lacroix in her orange jumpsuit neatly. She didn’t regard Lena with disdain this time; rather she observed nothing—a veritable void of feeling— through her baggy, sleepless eyes.

“Hello.”

“Amélie!” Lena greeted with an all-too friendly wave “Good to see you. Ah, I was gonna ask how y’been but I mean, considering what we just walked through to get in here--.”

“It is sufficient. It’s let me think about everything.”

“Oh,” Lena replied dumbly, looking at Winston helplessly “And… d’you feel closure?”

“I suppose,” Amélie shrugged “I am locked here for my Talon transgressions, until the US government sees if they want to expel me to France to be tried, or try me themselves in the San Andrean justice system.”

“Maybe not for too long,” Winston offered with a gesture of his broad hand “Talon is gone, sure; its assets were claimed by the IAA and FIB alike, any drugs seized and destroyed, the money mostly seized save for… some we both willingly looked the other way on.”

Amélie blinked “How did you find all of it? What do you mean you looked the other way on some amount?”

“What’s your bail, Amélie?” the hulking IAA agent asked, standing a little more upright to obscure the still-somehow-unseen Sombra behind him.

“I… I recall it was in the millions, but what does that have to do with the seizures? You couldn’t have found those alone; who helped you?”

“I did,” the husky voice answered, as its owner finally revealed herself to the shocked gasp of the Frenchwoman. Sombra smiled and waved rather sheepishly as Amélie struggled to collect herself to respond “Struck a deal with these two once I found out Reyes popped himself like a balloon. Figured if I could help ‘em find all the resources Talon stashed, they’d let me away if I laid low. I just had one condition though, witness protection program type stuff.”

“I see,” the sniper mumbled, the gears in her head turning, albeit slowly.

“The condition was that I get enough money to bail you out,” Sombra admitted, weaving her fingers through her long hair and anxiously looking at the ground “I’m uh, basically workin’ for them now in terms of tightening cybersecurity, so I don’t need the money for myself right now. I just don’t want you to be left rotting away in this heap of shit surrounded by rednecks and concrete, ‘specially when all the shit y’did was basically programmed into ya against your will. There’s better ways to live, amiga.”

Amélie was astonished, so much so that silence persisted.

Lena looked at Winston, then Sombra, and then splayed out her arms in a grand gesture raising her voice “Surpriiiise! Isn’t that nice? You’ll be able to get back into society and maybe even go back to pursuing Olympic gold in shooting—if you still felt like it.”

“…is this true?” the Frenchwoman finally mustered, staring at Sombra in shock.

“Yep. I’m getting you out of here, and you can start rebuilding.”

Lena, upon spotting the sudden shine to Amélie’s eyes and her quivering lip, mumbled “Oop, here come the waterworks.”

“It’s _understandable_ , shush,” Winston muttered gruffly.

“Is the bail effective immediately?” the Englishwoman asked her much larger American counterpart, as Amélie fell to her knees with her hands slid down the glass, weeping all over again but out of a conflux of emotions—both happy and sombre. Her former colleague cooed at her with a soft whisper, murmuring that things would be alright, and that this was to be her good deed of the year helping her find her feet again.

“Yep, in a couple of hours she’s a free woman. I’m going to insist that we continue to fund her treatment though, which shouldn’t be a problem.”

Lena nodded approvingly, feeling her heart lighter for all the grimness this case had brought “Good call. She deserves some good after all that fucked up Talon rubbish. Oh, speaking of PMCs—is the case closed?”

“Just have to tally the stuff we seized, but otherwise… yeah? I think it’s over. No loose ends left here.”

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

A day later…

Reinhardt figured that the Morningwood cemetery would be where Jack was, by the simply marked grave that now housed Reyes’ remains. What he was mildly more surprised by was the presence of Jesse McCree, visibly red-eyed and sniffling. The huge German walked closer, offering McCree a kind, sympathetic and understanding smile as he pat his shoulder gently. Jesse simply shrugged and rubbed his eyes dry, mumbling about it raining before Reinhardt had appeared, when both he and Jack fully knew there was no possibility of that given the Los Santos sunshine that afternoon.

“What’s up? Are you visiting too?”

“Partially,” his old and normally boisterous friend hummed thoughtfully “But also because Ana had mentioned you’d be here. I figured I would stop by on my way to see Fareeha.”

“How’s she doing?” McCree asked, with the little waver to his voice still present although diminishing.

“She’s recovering well, upright and moving again. She can’t be too athletic or she may risk reopening the scars, but otherwise all’s well. Angela too is mobile, although plenty of physical therapy is needed in her case.” Reinhardt placed his hands behind his back, looking at both men with a solemn nod “We’re going to tell Fareeha everything: from Merryweather to Talon, to…”

“To you being her pops,” McCree finished with a serious look.

“You told him that too?” Reinhardt blinked at Jack, who shrugged.

“Nah Rein, I jus’guessed,” the younger man chuckled faintly. “Kinda obvious.”

“Ah… well, you’re right either way. I’m a little concerned that her reaction may aggravate her condition but Ana tells me the likelihood is that Fareeha would probably not be surprised.” He sighed wearily “I hope she’s right.”

 

* * *

 

Traffic was a distant hum as birds sang idle songs on the rooftop garden where the Shimada clan based the centre of their sphere of influence. Instead of reflection, rehabilitation was the order of the day on the immaculately gardened roof.

“Good, it seems you might be able to dispense with the wheelchair for short walking journeys for the time being,” Zenyatta’s eternally calm voice announced with a hint of optimism as he watched Angela move slowly forward on crutches with great focus and determination, willing the pain to subside to let her regain some motor control back. Genji cheered, Hanzo merely nodded with the tiniest hint of a smile to his face.

“Thanks, I’m looking forward to having working legs back,” she quipped with a wince, experimentally letting her legs take the brunt of her weight, quickly shifting it forward onto her crutch-clad arms when the sharp jolt of pain reminded her how delicate her knees were still. “Fareeha’s still on her way, right?”

“Certainly. I believe she’s joined up with her mother and that D.Va girl,” Hanzo confirmed, glancing over at his younger brother who seemed to recall some other details.

“Oh, yeah, when I was speaking to her she said Satya was going to be with her too, so it’s kinda lookin’ like more of a party with all these people,” Genji chirped, enthusiastic about being able to hang out with a bunch of his favourite folks, as well as friends he hadn’t met yet “Reinhardt’s going to be coming by too!”

“Satya…?” Hanzo muttered, frowning as the name seemed vaguely familiar, looking at Angela who certainly registered the name as that of her medical colleague.

“Ah, that’s quite a bit, isn’t it? Is this…” She turned to Genji with a hobble and a clack of the crutches “Is this what you mentioned before? Ana and that Reinhardt fellow want to speak to Fareeha about something important; are they going to do it then?”

“Probably, that’s my hunch. I figure we’d give them all space away from the rest of Los Santos so they can do it in peace.”

“Huh, that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard you say, Genji.”

“Angela I can be nice!!”

Zenyatta clasped his hands together, immediately and thankfully dispelling the beginning of a Genji blubbering tangent insistently he was a nice guy, and smiled serenely “Before they arrive, why don’t we try some more rehabilitating exercises?”

 

* * *

 

“I cannot fucking believe this,” Hana muttered, staring up at the sleek, intimidating silver façade of the building “Are we seriously going into the heartland of the goddamn Shimada family?”

“Angela’s buddies with the sons,” Fareeha nonchalantly half-shrugged, chuckling when Satya made a scandalised noise, enjoying the one fact she knew over the Indian for a change.

“She befriended the younger son after his surgery?! God, I remember it too and everything…” the surgeon recalled with a huff, more so at how Fareeha’s banter had evolved into almost being level with her after her close-call.

“How’d she--?” Hana started, trailing off.

“I wouldn’t say she’s _friends_ with the one who was her patient, more he imprinted on her like a puppy or something,” the Egyptian answered, stepping through the automatic doors sliding smoothly open. Her mother remained silent as she followed the three women inside, having hung back with the recently arrived Reinhardt and murmuring to one another about what was to come up. Fareeha continued unawares “She’s got the Shimada family watching her cos she stopped one of them from dying a mangled horrible death, I guess.”

“Like Reyes…” Hana mumbled. Were those weird dudes at the showdown the Shimada boys? One of them did have a kind of fucked-up-but-not-face. She shared a look of understanding with Ana over her shoulder as Fareeha approached the receptionist.

“We’re here to see Hanzo, business with Angela.” Just as the elder brother instructed her to say, the magic words registered with the pointed looking woman who brightened immediately and pointed them towards the elevators with a handful of further directions to take them out onto the little meditation space on the roof.

The doors parted, and out stumbled Fareeha into the bright sunlight, narrowing her eyes after having adjusted to the indoor gloom and dimly lit Japanese décor. The brothers, Zenyatta and Angela looked to see, and by the time Ana, Reinhardt, Hana and Satya had stepped out onto the roof after the recovering pilot, the Swiss woman had already managed to power herself over to her lover and embrace her as best as she could while trying not to put weight on her injured knees.

“Schätzli!”

“Oof, I’m here, I’m here,” Fareeha muttered with a tiny whine of pain “Can—can you not squeeze so tight?”

“Angela, I know you’re excited, but dear Fareeha has only recently started healing from her near-miss,” Satya scolded, though unable to disguise her relieved smile. “I thought you’d know better as a professional!”

The blonde woman stood back, regarded her friend coolly as she merely glanced at Hana and muttered “Says the cradlerobber.”

“Hey!” Hana growled, enough to merit an apologetic look from Angela briefly, whirling around to confront the sudden explosion of laughter out of Reinhardt who went rather _impressively_ silent the second the girl laid eyes on him.

“Lemme just tease her a little, please Hana?”

“Not if you’re gonna turn me into a goddamn child for that to happen!”

“Alright, alright,” Angela acquiesced, rolling her eyes when Satya gave her a rather triumphant and superior smile.

“If you would all please have some decorum while on my family’s premises--,” Hanzo began gruffly, causing them all to turn to him and mutter varying apologies, save Satya staring a hole through his head. He reciprocated it, a twinge of something in his memory as the rest of the gathering moved towards the oblivious Genji and Zenyatta gesturing to the benches in the circular space. Mercifully for the other, they opted not to breathe a word about it aloud but stew in their own embarrassment and astonishment realising they had met before in significantly different circumstances, as they took seats as far away from one another as possible.

It flew under the radar for the most part, as Genji had begun recounting some tales of his own, explaining his penchant for death-defying shootouts and murderous melee fights that he barely survived, wildly acting out and frequently glancing at forever placid and contented Zenyatta for approval. Every so often Hanzo would cough or grumble at different beats in his stories, as if his little brother might be embellishing just a little, although he looked a lot more natural like this rather than flustered and unable to make eye contact with the surgeon directly across from him. Hana noticed, but given where they were she decided not to mercilessly tease the heir to the Los Santos yakuza about his taste, since she liked breathing and existing quite a bit. So instead, she opted to get extremely cuddly with Satya since subtlety was not a strong suit—something that made her certainly _spiritually_ an Amari.

“—and after that surgery I became known as the Unkillable Dragon!”

Angela’s palm slowly met her face.

“ _Unlikeable_ , maybe,” Hanzo retorted, folding his arms “Are you done bluffing?”

“Surely you’ve tired yourself out for your afternoon nap?” Ana grinned at Genji, hands on her knees with elbows pointing upwards “I think it’s time the other storytellers had their turn.”

The younger Shimada sat down mutely in an instant, surprising even his sibling. When pressed with a nudge, he looked at Hanzo and squeaked “I’ve no interest in messing with anyone who had anything to do with Merryweather.”

Reinhardt caught what he was saying, glancing at Ana to see she too had heard. Their expressions turned solemn, and Angela could discern the tone of the conversation changing, becoming serious too as if it would encourage the two old soldiers to follow through with what they said they’d do. The doctor nudged her girlfriend, gesturing with a nod towards Ana, urging Fareeha to pay attention.

“Speaking of Merryweather, it’s about time I told you the truth about what I did before you were born, Fareeha. The rest of you can be privy to it; I doubt that dead PMC will be relevant to your lives any time soon asides from myself.” Ana leaned back, looking up at the wisps of white clouds faintly peppering the azure sky “I’m long overdue this story, more so now than ever, because I was to tell you before Talon interfered that day.”

She spoke at length, with Reinhardt chiming in with what he remembered to further contextualise the story: how Merryweather had been founded in 1980 as a ragtag bunch of vagrants pooling their resources together on the eve of the USA-Australia war, evolving into a well-oiled machine used judiciously whenever the Aussies had targeted the West Coast the hardest. She talked all about Gabriel Reyes who rose to the top, the defacto leader with the tenacity of a rabid animal but who viewed his friends as his equals and advisors alike, not shying away from how they related to one another nor sugarcoated any of the grimmer events. Ana talked through their highs and lows, the patchwork campaigns overseas as well as on US turf, the highly notorious Vice City incident where they fended off the finest of the IAA and FIB alike assaulting the Cuban boat they had been hired to protect, and the fateful end of Merryweather in the boroughs of Liberty City.

“So you left Merryweather because of me?” Fareeha asked, a heady mix of spellbound and somewhat numb with the tidal wave of truth she had been waiting on for years all coming out at once over her. The rest of the audience had been held quietly captivated in the palm of Ana’s hand, a testament to how capable a storyteller she was.

“I wanted you to grow up safe and sound,” Ana stressed, clasping her hands as if to punctuate her statement. She looked over at Reinhardt, who gulped but nodded, sharing the swell of nerves and anxiety as the last bit of truth bubbled to the fore.

“Speaking of Merryweather and you, ah… there is something we must tell you, habibti.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not Pictured: Hana yelling at Fareeha for being an idiot since she guessed the truth about Reinhardt around the time she was recovering from the boat breaking her ribs.
> 
> -
> 
> this is literally the only multi-chapter fic i've ever finished in my life, this is an achievement.  
> Thank you everyone who enjoyed the fic! Whether you left a comment, kudos, bookmark or just passed through, I really appreciate your time and hope you liked it.  
> I think if I'm posting fic in future its just gonna be oneshots, phew.


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